White Chocolate Panna Cotta with Strawberries & Macaroons

Makes 6

I love panna cotta; for me, someone without much of a sweet tooth, its an ideal dessert. Creamy, light and summery! There are so many great variations out there but this one has gotta be up there!

When I'm researching recipes that use gelatine, I get quite frustrated when they say '3 leaves of gelatine' for example, because in the professional kitchens we use a leaf that is double the size of the ones you can buy in the supermarket. So do the chefs mean the pro ones or the home ones!? To avoid this, when writing recipes, I use powdered gelatine, which can be done by weight instead.

Ingredients:

Panna cotta-

500ml double cream

200ml whole milk

70g golden caster sugar

1 tsp good quality vanilla essence or seeds from 1 vanilla pod

150g white chocolate chips (in the pro kitchens we use this kind most often)

12g powdered gelatine

Macaroons-

100g ground almonds

150g golden caster sugar

60g egg whites

2 tsp rice flour

10 blanched almonds, halved, to top

Strawberries-

350g strawberries

2 tbsp icing sugar

2 tsp vanilla essence

Method:

1. Gently heat the milk, cream, sugar and vanilla on the stove, be careful not to boil it as the milk will catch on the bottom of the pan and ruin the flavour. Once its steaming, take it off the heat and remove the vanilla pod, if using. Tip in the chocolate and stir to help it melt. Put it back on the lowest heat and add in the gelatine. Stir to dissolve and pour the mixture, through a sieve, into a clean jug. Allow it to almost cool at room temperature; this will help the vanilla seeds to get suspended throughout the panna cotta rather than all settle to the bottom. Pour into 6 small (around 200ml) pudding basins and set in the fridge to set for at least 4 hours.

2. Preheat the oven to 130C. To make the macaroons, combine the ground almonds, sugar and rice flour in a bowl. In the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk the egg whites until frothy, for about 1 minute. Fold the egg whites into the almond mixture. Line a large baking tray with parchment paper and take around a tablespoons worth of the mixture between your hands and roll into a ball and pop it on the parchment. Continue with the rest of the mixture, spreading them out. Flatten the balls to around 5cm wide with your fingers and top each with half an almond. Bake for 20minutes and then remove and allow to cool completely before removing from the parchment. Turn the oven up to 160C.

3. Cut the tops of the strawberries and halve or quarter them. Arrange in a single layer on a baking tray lined with parchment, sift the icing sugar over them and drizzle over the vanilla essence. Roast in the oven for 15 minutes until soft and oozing.

4. When you are ready to serve, take a blow torch and heat the outside of the pudding basins and tip each onto a chopping board. You can also run the basins under warm water to loosen the panna cotta but I find the blow torch method easier. Using a palette knife, lift each panna cotta onto a plate, gently spoon the roasted strawberries around it and finish with one of two of the biscuits.