Pineapple Sage & Coconut Panna Cotta

Experiments with herbs from my garden. And a lighter take on this low effort, high reward dessert.

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25-year-old me would be appalled by this. But these days, I love a mooch around the herb section of the local garden centre. Finding new and unusual herbs, and learning to bake with them is such a joyful past time. I’m not knocking your classic parsley, basil or thyme. But there is an abundance of plants out there we could be using to bring unique flavour to our dishes and desserts, and this diversity can bring health benefits too.

The latest addition to my herb garden is the fragrant pineapple sage. And for my first bake experiment with it, I infused it in creamy panna cotta.

While it is perfectly delicate without, I do enjoy this dessert with a decadent honey drizzle. It’s important to use a light honey though, so it doesn’t overpower the pineapple sage.

Pineapple Sage & Coconut Panna Cotta, with honey drizzle

Don’t want to read? Good news, I figured out the ‘Jump to Recipe’ button:

What’s Pineapple Sage?

Sorry to break it to you, but pineapple sage is of no relation to actual pineapple. It’s a member of the mint family, as is common sage.

Rub the soft as felt leaves and you will discover it has the most wonderful fragrance of, you guessed it, sweet, sweet pineapple. While the herb doesn’t taste strongly of pineapple, it has a light tropical fruit flavour, which works well in sweet dishes with honey, citrus or cream. Although it’s also said to work in savoury dishes, like sausages or roast chicken.

It can be used in so many ways; as a flavoured sugar, a syrup in cocktails, in jam, steeped in hot water as a tea, a garnish on fruit salads, or as a compound butter. Apparently a good rub of pineapple sage butter will give you the best roast chicken you’ve ever known.

If you are looking for a substitute, don’t go for common sage, which is much more savoury. Instead, try a combination of lemon zest and a little mint leaf. Although mint is less delicate in flavour so go easy on the amount of mint you use, maybe just a leaf or two. Lemon balm would also make a good substitute.

Being rich in vitamins and minerals, pineapple sage is said to have several health benefits. Used in traditional medicine to lower blood pressure and aid digestion, there’s also some evidence that it can combat depression, anxiety and insomnia. It’s also said to work well in home made skincare products due to its anti-inflammatory properties.

My plant hasn’t flowered yet, and I can’t wait to see (and eat!) the beautiful red flowers, which have a sweet honeysuckle nectar and attract butterflies. (And hummingbirds, but considering I am in the UK I would fall off my kitchen chair if I saw hummingbirds in my garden!)¹

Wibbly Wobbly Perfect Panna Cotta

I’m not sure panna cotta counts as baking. You don’t even turn the oven on. But, ever since Bocca Di Lupo’s honey grappa version with sweetly poached rhubarb graced my palate earlier this year, it’s a chic, sensual dessert I’ve been repeatedly turning to.

Although, the way my daughter likes to recklessly wibble panna cotta by shaking the whole plate, a manic delight in her eyes as she then smooshes the ruins with a spoon, destroys its grown up sensuality somewhat.

Bocca Di Lupo’s Honey Grappa Panna Cotta, with rhubarb

It seems, the key thing with panna cotta is that it should only be just set. In her beautiful book, La Vita Dolce, wonderful food writer Letitia Clark rather saucily tells us we should “aim for the soft, gentle wobble of a woman’s breast.” Niki Signit adds in Lateral Cooking, “the set should put up a barely delectable resistance to the spoon, yielding the moment it enters the mouth.” Ooh Er Missus. If I’m not a little nervous getting it out of the mould, I know something has gone awry.

Many recipes include some milk to cut through the richness of the heavy cream. And my favourite recipes tend to include a little tang of acidity. Will Torrent uses buttermilk in his panna cotta, and in Sweet, Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh use yogurt in their version with basil and crushed strawberries. Although Letitia Clark argues that - while it can be good - once you add yogurt or buttermilk it stops being panna cotta, which literally translates as ‘cooked cream’.

For my take today, possibly to the horror of Italians, I have tried to go a little lighter than classic panna cotta. Most recipes include double (heavy) cream, but as I have used a set coconut yogurt (So sorry Letitia), I was able to get away with using a slightly lighter whipping cream with a fat content of 38g, compared to double creams 50.5g. Giving this panna cotta a silky, velvety light texture.

Smooth, clean, just set panna cotta

The coconut yogurt pairs beautifully with the pineapple sage, and gives the panna cotta a little tang too.

If you are vegetarian, you can use agar agar, or Vege-Gel, rather than pork based gelatine. This recipe here shows you how to turn your panna cotta vegan too.

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Pineapple Sage & Coconut Panna Cotta

For all its elegance, this is a very easy, and quick, dessert to make. Much of the time is leaving things to infuse or chill while you get on with something else. I like the idea of this being a romantic dessert for two, although you could make three smaller panna cotta if you prefer. My lovely friend Lolly Martyn said this looks like a “cloud of sweetness” and I’m inclined to agree.

A cloud of sweetness

Serves: 2 (or 3 smaller panna cotta)

Time taken: 35 minutes prep, 4 hours chilling

Specialist equipment: 2-3 mini pudding moulds

Ingredients

• Flavourless oil, for greasing

• 150ml whipping cream

• 50ml double cream

• 25g caster sugar

• Good handful of fresh pineapple sage leaves

• 1x gelatine leaf (I use Dr Oetker)

• 50g dairy free coconut yogurt (I use The Coconut Collab)

• 2x tsp light honey, for drizzling (optional)

Method

Begin by oiling your pudding moulds with a little flavourless oil.

In a small saucepan warm the creams with the sugar, over a medium heat. Give it an gentle whisk to ensure the sugar has dissolved before bringing the cream to an almost boil.

Wash your pineapple sage in some cold water and dry them off. Leave a few leaves aside for garnish - the sage leaves ‘cooked’ in the cream will lose their scent, so having some to garnish means you still get to enjoy the fragrance, the smaller leaves will have the stronger scent. Roll, crush and rip the rest to release flavour.

Once the cream is just about to boil, take off the heat and throw in the pineapple sage leaves. Cover your saucepan and leave to infuse for half an hour. (Or longer, if you want to up the flavour intensity.)

Towards the end of that half hour, soak your gelatine leaf in cold water for about five minutes.

Once your infusing time is finished, you may need to put your saucepan back on the heat for a minute or so to warm back up.

Remove the saucepan from the heat. Take your gelatine leaf out of the water, it should be soft. Squeeze out the excess water and place in your cream.

Give it a gentle whisk so the gelatine melts, before gently mixing in the yogurt until combined.

Strain everything through a fine mesh sieve into a jug. Press on the sage leaves in the sieve to get more flavour through.

Pour into the oiled moulds. Let them cool a little before covering and placing in the fridge for four hours.

15 minutes before serving time, pull them out of the fridge to come to temperature.

To get them out smoothly, dip each mould in a bowl of hot water for 5-10 seconds.

Turn them out on pretty plates (mandatory for such an elegant dessert) and, if you like, drizzle with a little honey and let it soak into your panna cotta. Garnish with your remaining pineapple sage leaves.

Until next time…

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1. Want to read more about pineapple sage? Do check out: The Nerdy Farm Wife, Wild Medicine, Herbal Healing and Specialty Produce