Vanilla Bean Panna Cotta

Ingredients

• 1 whole Vanilla bean
• 300 mls Thickened cream
• 2/3 cup Milk
• 2 tsps Gelatine
• 2 tbsps Caster sugar
• 1 handful Raspberries (frozen are fine)
• 1-2 tsp Sugar

Directions

1. Grease 4-6 ramekins with butter.
2. Scrape vanilla bean seeds into a small saucepan, add cream and milk and pop in the vanilla bean pod.  Stir to combine.
3. Stand the cream mixture for 10 minutes – this allows all the flavours to infuse.
4. Sprinkle gelatine and sugar over the cream mixture.
5. Turn the stove onto low and stir the cream mixture steadily until the gelatine and sugar dissolve.  It is very important not to boil – better to take a long time than to ruin it with impatience!  You can tell when they are dissolve as the little lumps of gelatine will be gone when you look at the mixture on a spoon.
6. Pour the mixture evenly into the prepared rammekins.  Allow to cool to room temperature.
7. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 3 hours, or until set.  You can leave overnight without any problems.
8. Prepare the raspberry coulis – just a handful of raspberries with a teaspoon or so of sugar (to taste), and warm until the berries break down.
9. You can serve the panna cotta in the ramekins if you wish, but for a bit of elegance, tip them out onto a plate and drizzle the raspberry coulis around.  To extract more easily from the ramekins, try running a warm knife around the rim.  I also found it helpful to keep the knife in on one side while tipping onto the plate, as this counteracts the suction effect.