Salted caramel panna cotta is super easy to make.
There is no cooking apart from heating the milk and cream gently to a simmer. It is such a simple dessert with a soft, wobbly texture and creamy caramel flavour.
Garnish with a few grains of sea salt and you have a winning dessert. Here’s a recipe by Radisson Blu Hotel Sandton’s executive chef, Slobodan Stefancic.
Stefancic notes that this recipe yields six portions of panna cotta and that you can double up the ingredients if you need to make more.
Ingredients
- 1 cup cream
- 250ml milk
- 4 tbsp castor sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- 3 sheets of leaf gelatine
- 100g popped popcorn (not flavoured)
Salted caramel
200g brown sugar
50g butter
300ml cream
Maldon sea salt to taste
Method to create the panna cotta
Put the cream, milk, popcorn and sugar in a pan, bring to a boil then allow it to simmer for 3-5 minutes.
Remove from the heat and allow the flavour of the popcorn to infuse for 2-3 minutes.
Strain the liquid into another container, and squeeze the popcorn as much as possible to extract the flavour.
Soak the gelatine sheets in cold water – for about 5 minutes – bloom the gelatine, then squeeze out any excess water.
Stir the sheets into the hot liquid until they are completely dissolved.
Rub a little vegetable oil into the dariole moulds with a paper serviette.
Pour the mixture equally into 4 moulds. Cover with cling film and place in the fridge until set. Set to a minimum of six hours.
Method to create the salted caramel
- Place the saucepan on the stove, add the brown sugar and caramelise it.
- Add the butter and the cream.
- It will bubble quite rapidly, simmer until thick (to coat the back of the spoon).
- Season with salt to your taste.
- Store in the container until needed.
Plating
- Dip the pastry brush into the caramel paint and draw the line on the plate.
- Place the pannacotta on top of the caramel paint line.
- Garnish with a few popcorns and a few Maldon sea salt crystals. Or serve the panna cotta in a single-serving glass dish, pour salted caramel over the top, allow it to set, and garnish with popcorn and a few grains of sea salt.
