Here at Kitchen Provisions HQ, we are a dab hand at the old panna cotta. The ingredients are pretty much always in our kitchen, the recipe is only a bit trickier than  making a cup of tea, and the whole process can be nailed in about 15 minutes. These factors make it a regular go to pudding. 

This time I wanted to mix it up a bit and flavour the actual panna cotta. The trick here is to infuse the flavour when heating the milk and cream. This avoids adding any further liquid which might upset the ability of the gelatine to set. The second thing to bear in mind is that the flavour needs to be delicate; a subtle hint is much more effective and it is easy to over do it.

I whipped up four different flavours for Saunders to test...

- the classic vanilla (1 split vanilla pod)

- Earl Grey tea (1 teabag in the cream mix. Let it infuse until the colour has only changed slightly. Think the weakest, palest cup of tea rather than a mug of builders tea)

- orange peel and cardamom (1 tsp dried orange peel and 3 pods of cardamom)

- lavender (1/2 tsp dried lavender)

For me, the orange and cardamom was the winner. Subtle but with flavours that worked well with the cream and texture.