Pannacotta with Saffron & Pear Flavour Pearls

Pannacotta is a delight to eat and not too tricky to make…add a gorgeous poached pear and some of our Limited Edition  Saffron & Pear Flavour Pearls and your dinner party guests are in for a treat…

Ingredients for 4 serves

For the panna cotta

• 3 gelatine leaves
• 250ml milk
• 250ml double cream
• 1 vanilla bean, split lengthways, seeds scraped out
• 25g sugar

Instructions

• Soak the gelatine leaves in a little cold water until soft.

• Place the milk, cream, vanilla pod, seeds and sugar into a pan and bring to a gentle simmer. Remove the vanilla pod and discard
• Squeeze the water out of the gelatine leaves, then add to the pan and take off the heat. Stir until the gelatine has dissolved.
• Divide the mixture among four ramekins and leave to cool. Place into the fridge for at least an hour, until set.
• To serve, turn each panna cotta out onto a serving plate.

To poach the pears

• saffron , generous pinch
• 6 tbsp warm water
• 100g caster sugar
• 175ml water
• 75ml ginger wine
• 1 star anise
• 1 strip orange peel (just peel with a peeler)
• 4 medium pears, peeled with stalks left on

Instructions

• Soak the saffron in warm water and leave for an hour.
• Dissolve the caster sugar in the water and ginger wine in a medium pan. Turn up the heat and boil for 3-4 minutes before adding the star anise and orange peel.
• Turn the heat to low and add the pears, peeled with stalks left on. Place a cartouche (this helps to keep the pears under the poaching liquid) over the pears. Cover and cook gently until the pears are tender, occasionally turning.

And to finish…

• 1 x 50 g jar of Saffron & Pear Flavour Pearls
• 4 x cold and set pannacotta
• 4 x cold or room temperature poached pears
• 4 hungry people

Now simply turn the pannacotta onto the serving plate, place your pear to one side and add generous spoonful of Flavour Pearls…..ta dah! If you are reading this after the Limited Edition is no longer available there are many other flavours that work beautifully with this dessert.

The pannacotta and the poached pears can be prepared days in advance…making this an ideal dinner party dessert idea. No one wants to be run ragged with too much kitchen time at the last minute!

(we used a bay leaf to give our poached pear a little extra something and a disk of sugar atop the pannacotta – a lovely crisp wafer would work well too)

Until next time

The Peninsula Larder Team

words to seriously think about!