Preheat the oven to 375.

Pour the amaretto over the dried cherries and rest for at least 15 minutes up to overnight.

Toss the flour, almond flour, sugar, butter pieces, baking power and salt together. Using a pastry blender, a fork or your trusty hands, smash, press and blend the mixture together. Once the butter is crumbled in and smaller than pea-size, toss in the nuts.

Strain the cherries and pour the amaretto into a small sauce pan (if making the amaretto cream cheese). Toss the strained cherries into the scone mixture.

Now it is time to add the liquid. Combine about 1 tablespoon of the leftover amaretto with the buttermilk. Pour into the dry mixture and fold just until combined. Do not stir, mix, beat or blend. Simply ensure the ingredients are just barely clinging together and that is all.

On a baking sheet lined with parchment, drop a nice sized blob of raw scone on to the pan. Give each scone a few inches to raise. For the photo, I put two oblong blobs together and pinched the bottom to make it more like a heart.

Just prior to placing in the oven, sprinkle each scone with a pinch of sugar or we used turbinado sugar.

Bake for 18-24 minutes until the bottoms are golden brown and the tops are lightly golden.

While the scones bake, heat the remaining amaretto until it has reduced in half and become syrupy. Turn off the heat and add the cream cheese, whipping together a bit. When the scones are hot out of the oven, spread on this cream cheese and devour.

Extra Tip: This is a bit unorthodox, but since we each like to have our own scone fresh out of the oven, I have started making just half the batch on the first day. Then I store in mixture in the oven and bake the remaining amount the next day. Actually, I have saved the dough once for a couple of days in the fridge and they baked up just fine.