Desserts – Coconut Pannacotta with Poached Cherries

This is so blissfully easy and ridiculously inexpensive this time of year I wonder why I haven’t thought of it before. As it was, it took the suggestion of a friend to spur me into action. Would I be so kind as to bring a dessert round as my contribution to an early Christmas lunch? Something with vanilla in it? Or coconut?

So I made this.

With standard supermarket ingredients you could almost get away with using generic or no-name products, but the one thing you can’t skimp on is good gelatine to help set the pannacottas. If possible DO try to use gelatine leaves. They are harder to get in some areas than others. Gelatine powder is a good substitute but it does make the pannacotta set at a firmer consistency. The thing about pannacotta is that it should be feathery light, so wobbly as to threaten to collapse at any moment. That’s what makes it such a delectable dessert. That and the fact that it’s crowned with perfectly poached ripe cherries of course.

Consider this as an alternative dessert during next week’s feast days. You could do a lot worse.

Adapted from a recipe by SBS Food

Makes 6

INGREDIENTS

320ml (1 and 1/3 cup) coconut cream; 125ml (½ cup) pouring cream; 110g (2/3 cup) caster sugar; 3 leaves gelatine OR 1 tbsp gelatine powder
Poached Cherries: 200g fresh ripe cherries, pitted; 110g (2/3 cup) caster sugar; ½ tsp vanilla extract; dash marsala (optional)

METHOD

Use 12 small plastic drinking cups, set one inside the other to make six moulds. Place the cups on a baking tray.

Place the creams and sugar in a saucepan and bring them to the boil over medium heat, stirring. Add gelatine powder and stir until it dissolves. If you are using gelatine leaves: Place the leaves in a small bowl of cold water and leave them there for ten minutes until they are soft and doubled in size. Squeeze out as much cold water from them as you can and then add them to the warm cream. Stir until the jelly-like leaves dissolve completely.

Strain mixture, discarding the solids. Cool, then divide among the six moulds. Refrigerate for at least six hours or until set.

Poached Cherries: Place pitted cherries, 60ml water, sugar and vanilla in a pan over medium heat for 2 minutes or until sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil, then add marsala (if using). Cook for a further two minutes then remove from heat and cool to room temperature or chill in the fridge until you are ready to serve.

To serve: Remove the inner cup from its partner and gently place the mould into a bowl of luke warm water for twenty seconds only. Turn the mould up onto a serving plate and gently squeeze out the pannacottas onto a plate. Spoon cherries and juice around the pannacottas and serve at once.

COST

$5.80 for six people