Lemon and Honey Panna Cotta with a Rich Cherry and Amaretto Syrup

Anyone who watched my rather hilarious appearance on 'Dinner Date' a few years ago, might remember me doing this recipe for my ever-so (un)charming date. As I've not made a pudding in so long I decided to do so this week as a bit of a change. I also chose to do this because at the car boot sale  I went to last weekend, I acquired a lovely plate with a turquoise detail on it. I thought the cherry sauce would look lovely against that colour.

This is an easy recipe which looks effortlessly impressive- especially if you serve it with an Amaretto Sour cocktail, which I definitely intend to do! I loosely based this recipe on Simon Rimmer's Vanilla Panna Cotta recipe on BBC Food (see in my 'Related Links section if you want to refer to his recipe too). I've tarted mine up a bit with some lemon and honey,  and I've replaced the gelatine for Vegetarian Gelatine from ASDA.

My Recipe (makes 4 small Panna Cotta):
For the Panna Cotta:
150ml milk
250ml thick double cream 
zest of half a lemon
half a vanilla pod
teaspoon of nice honey
About 6g Vegetarian Gelatine

For the Cherry Sauce:
Cherries
juice of half a lemon
1 tablespoon of sugar
Glug of Amaretto (I put in quite a big glug)

Put the cream, milk, sugar, lemon zest, vanilla pod (with scraped out seeds) and honey into a pan and heat at a medium temperature. I in fact bought extra thick double cream so I had to give the cream and milk a bit of a blend before heating.

Heat until the cream mixture comes to the boil and at this point add in your vegetarian gelatine.

Stir in and let this simmer for a minute or two. Not long.

Once it's bubbling take the pan off the heat

Pour the hot mixture into a jug so that it's easy to pour into moulds. At this point you could sieve this mixture so that it is smoother once set, otherwise the lemon zest will be bitty.

Divide the mixture out evenly into four moulds and let them cool down to room temperature before putting them in the fridge- They'll probably need an hour or two in the fridge.

For the cherry sauce, throw all of the ingredients into a pan, along with your Amaretto.

Let it simmer for about five minutes and it'll be ready. You cannot fail with this one.

Once the Panna Cottas have cooled and set,  turn them out onto your plate and serve with this sauce, which you can reheat if you like. 

This was the first trial for the Veggie Panna Cotta. It didn't have the usual consistency and richness I so like in a Panna cCotta. I feel it needs a bit more work on getting the quantities right, taking into account that there is no gelatine and instead the gelling agent is Agar.  As with the Veggie Burger this will have to be an ongoing quest. But it was nice enough, so if you fancy giving it a go I'd be interested to hear your feedback and suggestions.