Silky Pear and Lemon Panna Cotta with Raspberry Sauce, a wonderful Italian chilled dessert, using fresh pears and lemons to make a refreshing flavor combination. Easy to make and great for Valentine's Day or Thanksgiving and Christmas!

I've been making this recipe for many years, adapted and swapped ingredients to produce different flavors.
One Christmas we had friends come to stay, along with their four young children.
I wanted to make a special dessert, seeing as it was for a Christmas dinner, and also fun for the kids. Something that would be refreshing and clean on your palate after eating all that comes with a full-blown roast turkey dinner.

I came up with this Panna Cotta recipe, which, with the flavor combinations of pear and lemon, it makes for a really refreshing taste, together with the slight sourness of the raspberries cutting through the creamy texture of the Panna Cotta, this dessert went down a treat!
I also wanted to have a dessert that was easy to make in advance and leave in the fridge until ready. This was a perfect choice! I made it the night before, leaving me free the next day to battle with the roast turkey!
I hope you will try this dessert. Obviously, you don't have to put silly smiley faces on it, but for kids, it's fun!

Prep time

15 minutes

Cook time

3 hours refrigeration

Yield

4-6 servings

Ingredients

For the Panna Cotta

3 pears (enough to make 1 ½ cups purée)
2 tablespoons cold water (for pears)
1 package unflavored gelatin (.25 oz)
2 tablespoons cold water (for the gelatine)
1 ½ cups or 350 ml heavy /double cream
1 cup or 230 ml milk
¼ cup or 50 g sugar
1 lemon and its zest
1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped
1 cinnamon stick
A pinch of salt

For the Raspberry Sauce

1 ½ cups or 175 g fresh raspberries
1-2 tablespoons icing / powdered sugar

Instructions

This is a really simple recipe!

Prepare the pear panna cotta:

1. Peel, core, and chop the pears.

2. Zest and juice 1 lemon. (keep the zest for later)

3. Heat the pears in a small saucepan with 2 tablespoons of water and the juice of 1 lemon. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook until the fruit is tender, about 4-7 minutes, and then allow to cool.

4. Using a blender, food processor, or masher, and purée the pears until smooth. Pass through a fine-mesh sieve and reserve the purée for the Panna Cotta.

5. Combine the heavy cream, milk, pear purée, lemon zest, sugar, vanilla seeds and bean, cinnamon stick and salt in a medium saucepan. Heat to a simmer and allow to steep for 5 minutes.

6. Place the remaining 2 tablespoons of water in a small dish and sprinkle the gelatin over it. stirring until the gelatin is dissolved and softened. *Do this last minute when the cream mixture is steeping.

7. Add the gelatin mixture to the hot cream, stirring until the gelatin dissolves, and then strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a large measuring cup with a spout.

8. Divide mixture into ramekins and refrigerate until chilled and set, approximately 4 hours, although you can make this the day before and leave it in the fridge.

Prepare the raspberry sauce:

1. Wash the raspberries and place them in a blender until pureed.

2. Once blended, taste to see if the raspberries require some icing / powdered sugar, add to taste. I usually add between 1 and 2 tablespoons until the sauce is slightly sweet, but still has a little sourness.

3. Pass through a sieve to remove the seeds. This will take patience and is easiest done using the back of a spoon and pushing the sauce through.

4. Pour the sauce into a jug and cover. Leave to keep chilled in the refrigerator.

We'd love to hear from you and what you thought of our post. Did you make any changes or add some other goodies? Let us know in the comments below. Thanks for reading and happy cooking!

We'd love to hear from you and what you thought of our recipe. Did you make any changes or add some other ingredients? Let us know in the comments below. Thanks for reading and happy cooking!

The best ways to remove panna cotta from the ramekins.

1. Make sure the Panna Cotta is set before you try to turn it out. It should have a slight wobble on the surface. If you are not confident the panna cotta will come out, place plastic wrap on the inside of your ramekin, and then when it is set, you can just lift it out easily.

2. Carefully loosen around the edges with a knife.

3. To help the Panna Cotta come out easily, fill a bowl/container with warm water and immerse the ramekins for 5 seconds. Make sure the water is not so hot to avoid melting your lovely set Panna Cottas!

4. Turn ramekin upside down onto a serving dish, gently coaxing the Panna cotta out. A gentle wiggle or two should work. If it still doesn't want to come out, immerse again in warm water and try turning out again.

Options for Raspberry Sauce

• For the Raspberry sauce, if you can't get fresh raspberries due to seasonality, frozen ones will also work well, just defrost first!
• If you don't like raspberries, strawberries also work well with Panna Cotta, but ensure you taste the sauce before adding icing sugar as fruits will vary in sweetness according to time of year and their quality...as well as your own personal taste.

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