9 White chocolate pannacotta with passion fruit curd
9.1 Pannacotta:
9.1.1 Ingredients
200 g white chocolate
90 g (100 ml) granulated sugar
1.5 quarter tsp (2 ml) agar agar powder
600 ml heavy whipping cream
1.5 tsp vanilla paste
9.1.2 Instructions
Chop the white chocolate into small pieces, about the size of peas, and place it in a heatproof bowl.
Combine the rest of the ingredients in a saucepan (preferably stanless steel). Once the mixture comes to a boil, start a timer and let the mixture simmer/boil for 3-4 minutes before removing the saucepan from the heat. Stir a few times while the mixture is simmering/boiling.
Once mixture is removed from the heat, pour it over the chopped white chocolate and slowly stir the mixture with a heat-resistant spatula until the chocolate has completely melted.
Pour the panna cotta batter into the glass/dish you want to serve in. Let it cool off for 20 mins or so, cover with plastic wrap, and then put it into the fridge to set for at least 1 hour, preferably over the night.
9.2 Passion fruit curd:
9.2.1 Ingredients
135 g granulated sugar
6 egg yolks (from large eggs)
150 ml juice from passion fruit (fresh or frozen)
25 g unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
9.2.2 Instructions
Prepare a pot with water just enough that when placing a heatproof bowl on top, the bowl is not in contact with the water. Bring the water to a boil. Optional: Prepare another bowl with a fine-mesh strainer.
Combine the sugar, yolks, and fruit juice in the heatproof bowl. Lower the heat of the stove so the water isn’t rumbling and place the bowl over the pot. Double-check that the bowl isn’t in contact with the boiling water.
Whisk the mixture constantly to prevent the eggs to clot. It will take a while before the mixture starts to thicken, but once it does it can go fast.
Once the mixture has thickened enough that the whisk leaves traces in the mixture, remove the bowl from the pot.
Stir in the butter, piece by piece, and keep stirring unil the butter has melted and is fully incorporated.
Optional: Once the butter has been incorporated into the curd, pour it trough the fine-mesh strainer to remove any pieces of coagulated egg yolk. If the mesh is very fine, you may have to press with a spatula to help the curd through the strainer.
Cover the curd with plastic wrap and make sure to place the wrap on the surface of the curd to prevent a thick skin forming. Alternatively, pour the curd into a piping bag if you’d like to pipe it on top of the pannacotta. Place the curd into the fridge to set and chill.
9.3 Serving:
Just before serving, assemble the pannacotta, curd*, and any additional toppings** (optional). If not piping the curd, distribute it carefully with a teaspoon on top of the pannacotta. Dig in!
(*) Instead of fruit curd, you can serve the pannacotta with fresh raspberries (whole or mashed and sweetened with some sugar), or other fresh berries and/or fruit.
(**) Optional toppings: toasted and chopped nuts, caramellized nuts, coconut crisp (recipe to be added)
9.4 Notes
Passion fruit juice: Frozen passion fruit juice can be found in bigger grocery stores or in Mexican/Latin American grocery stores (I used frozen found at Mi Terra, San Pablo Ave, Berkeley, which has quite tart but strong flavor). If using fresh passion fruit, one fruit yields about 2 Tbsp inlcuding seeds and about 1 Tbsp strained juice.
Agar agar: I used the Telephone brand agar agar powder, found in the Asian food aisle in the grocery store. I boiled the pannacotta mixture for exactly 4 minutes (from the first boil until removing it from the heat), poured about 100 ml serving size and let it set for approx 24 hours in the fridge: the pannacotta was still a bit runny in the middle. Maybe let boil for approx 4.5-5 mins total to have it set all through.
White chocolate: Use high-quality chocolate for this. I used the Divine and Lindt brands found in the grocery store; Divine was superior in creaminess and flavor but probably not the superior quality out there. These were also very sweet. Brands to try: Valrhona, Cacao Barry, Green & Black’s.
Recipes adopted from Camilla Hamid, and Brinken bakar.