Recipe From What's For Lunch, Honey?
Ingredients
For the panna cotta
500g cream
50g sugar
1 vanilla bean, insides scraped and pod reserved
70g Brunost cheese, thinly sliced
3 sheets gelatin
For the sticky toffee pears
200g muscavado sugar
200g butter
2 pears, cubed
Method
Pour cream and sugar in a saucepan and gently heat. Add the vanilla pod and the innards, stirring with a wooden spoon. Allow to simmer for about 5 minutes then add the slices of Brunost to the mixture. The cheese will begin to melt fairly quickly. Simmer mixture for another 5 to 8 minutes, stirring occasionally until the Brunost has melted completely.
Soak the gelatin in a bowl filled with cold water for 5 minutes. In the meantime prepare your dessert glasses or bowls.
Take the saucepan off the heat, remove the vanilla pod and stir in the soft gelatin into the mixture.
Pour the brunost-vanilla-cream mixture through a fine meshed strainer into a jug (this helps for easy and clean pouring in the dessert glasses), then carefully pour equal amounts of liquid in each dessert glass.
Place in the refrigerator and allow to set for at least 4 hours, but preferably overnight.
To make the sticky toffee pears, place sugar and butter in a saucepan and over a low heat, simmer until the sugar has dissolved. Continue to cook until the sauce takes on a lovely toffee color. Add the pear cubes and allow them to soften – about 2-3 minutes in the toffee sauce. Remove from heat and cool completely.
To serve, pour 2-3 tablespoons of the sticky toffee pears over the panna cotta. I added a few cubes of fresh pears over this, which gives it a slight crunch and an additional fruity taste, however this is entirely optional.
Meeta’s Tip: I understand that Brunost is not available everywhere, so if you are having trouble finding the cheese then try this other twist – add 2-3 tablespoons of dulce de leche and a pinch of fleur de sel to the cream mixture. While the flavor will be different to this Brunost Panna Cotta you’ll be a step closer to a very divine dessert!
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