Panna cotta is my favourite desert. I had it for the first time at The Seafood Restaurant in Padstow, Rick Steins famous flagship restaurant which is celebrating 50 years of service this year….crazy to think an eating establishment have been trading for 50 years. Full credit to the whole team at Steins for achieving this milestone.

This as a food memory will always stay with me due to the circumstances we were in Cornwall that October. It was a very difficult time and Cornwall was used as the perfect escapism from reality.

I’ve made Panna Cotta at home a number of times due to living the desert but it only usually comes out on special occasions. This time it came out on New Year’s Eve. I’m not one for celebrating the New Year but I fancied creating this dish again as it’s simple to make.

Ingredients-

A very small amount of olive oil on a paper towel to grease your ramekins.

600ml of single cream

150ml of full fat milk

175g of caster sugar

1 whole vanilla pod cut in half then remove the seeds but keep the pod

3 gelatine sheets

Method –

Oil your ramekins and set aside.

Add the cream, milk, sugar & vanilla pod & seeds to a saucepan. Slowly bring this to the boil stirring to breakdown the sugar for it to dissolve. Simmer this for 10 minutes then remove from the heat.

In a small bowl full with cold add the gelatine sheets to loosen them up.

As a little touch I heated some sugar and water together to make a caramel. This isn’t part of the recipe, it was just me trying to be a little fancy.

I then poured the caramel into the greased ramekins to get the Panna cotta a caramel top.

Once the cream mixture in the saucepan has cooled a little remove the gelatine sheets from the cold water and give them a firm squeeze (the fatal words of Greg Wallace) to remove any water.

Add the gelatine sheets to the milt mixture as they are.

Return the pan to the heat. Gently heat the pan stirring as you go as you want the gelatine sheets to dissolve. This should only take a few minutes.

Once the sheets have dissolved and you get some nice bubbles appear in the creamy mixture remove from the heat. Remove the vanilla pods and discard these.

Pour your creamy mixture into your ramekins. Allow these to cool fully on the side. Once they are cool place them in the fridge to firm up which should take about 4 hours.

To remove the Panna cotta’s from the ramekins boil a kettle and add this water to a large bowl. Add your moulds carefully to this water, this should only take a few seconds to loosen the insides of the mould. Gently place a plate onto of the mould and flip over.

I served mine with strawberries and cream. Heavenly.

Thank you for reading my work….if you have of course.