Coconut vanilla panna cotta with poached rhubarb and fresh strawberries

One of the things I noticed about New Zealand, is that people really like coconut. Coconut butter, coconut milk, coconut sprinkles.. everything! So when I came back from my trip I decided to make a new recipe with coconut milk. As it’s also rhubarb season right now I decided to add it into my recipe as well. I was torn between a rhubarb – coconut mousse and panna cotta for a while but as I’ve never made panna cotta before I decided to go for that one instead but I might still try the mousse before rhubarb season is over again.

Making panna cotta is fairly easy in terms of techniques, but it’s the quantities that can really make or break your recipe. You cant to have a result that wiggles and looks like it’s about to fall apart. I must say the consistency was my biggest fear, and I was on the verge of throwing the panna cotta out when it finally set. It stayed runny for such a long time, I just assumed it meant it failed, but it turns out it just needed more time. Getting the panna cotta out can be a bit tricky too, but my golden tip here is to use warm water. Make sure you have at least one spare one to try before you serve them up, it only took me 2 attempts to get it out right.

The fruit on top is really easy to make, and you can add even more fruit like blueberries or raspberries, they all go well with the panna cotta.