Passion Fruit Panna Cotta

This is such a simple recipe, but it will wow anyone who eats it. The ingredients are easily obtainable, the flavours are incredible, and the dish looks beautiful. It's also a very good one to make ahead and plate on the night, if you know you're going to be pressed for time.

For an idea of what to serve for the main course, you could try our romantic rib steak with Bordelaise sauce for two.

A passionfruit panna cotta is complemented by passionfruit curd and shavings of dark chocolate.

For the panna cotta

6-8 Passion fruit (enough to yield 175ml of juice when pushed through a sieve)

300ml Cream

100ml Milk

80g Sugar

2 1/3 Platinum Gelatine sheets

For the curd

3-4 Passion fruit (enough to yield 75ml juice)

1 egg

25g Butter

50g Sugar

To serve 

Dark chocolate with a high cocoa content

Mint leaves (optional) 

Flesh of one passion fruit (optional)

To make the panna cotta, scoop the flesh from the passion fruit and sieve out the seeds, retaining the juice.  In a small bowl, soak the gelatine in cold water.

In a saucepan, bring the sugar, cream and milk to the boil. Remove it from the heat. Squeeze the water out of the softened gelatine and stir it in, until it dissolves. Add to the passion fruit juice, decant into ramekins, then put in the fridge to set. 

To make the curd, place all the ingredients in a small pan over a low heat and whisk together as it heats. Keep doing this until it is as thick as you can safely get it (it will set further as it cools). Remember to keep moving it in the pan as you don't want it to catch.

When the curd has thickened, allow it to cool and store it in the fridge. 

When you are ready to serve, you could either turn the panna cottas out of the ramekins, as above, or leave in the ramekins, as below.

Either way, finely grate the chocolate over the top quite generously, and dress with the curd, passion fruit and mint.