Lemongrass Panna cotta Tart

Do you know Julie Jones? She is a food blogger from the UK.

I got to know her from Instagram where she has a really successful account of her own. Search, and I think you will like it -(@Julie_jonesuk) is her account name.

She uploads wonderful tarts with elaborate decorations and talks a lot about her mother who is suffering from Alzheimers which touched my heart as we have been through the same with my father who had another type of dementia before he died recently.

More info about her you can find here

Anyway..I like the fact that she uses flowers to decorate her tarts and all those who know me well know that I have a passion for edible flowers. As spring is starting shortly I wanted to make a tart that was inspired by her. I wasn’t concerned about the base as I would do my own but her idea for the filling to be from pannacotta was, I thought, fantastic..In her recipe she put chamomile from tea bags and I thought, why use that when I have so many fresh herbs and flowers growing here in the garden or close by?

I always wanted to use sweet acacia flowers for a dessert but it’s too early for them to bloom, I sent a shoutout to people to find me some flowers but they couldn’t (thank you to Antonis and Xanthi!)

After I tried using flowers from a special sage that I have which is currently blooming but it came out very bitter and not very aromatic.

So I looked around the garden and a bush of lemongrass caught my eye which even now in winter is full of wonderful leaves full of aroma.So I thought this would be a good flavour candidate and I was right as it turned out really well!

I decorated the tart with seasonal fruit and with edible flowers from the garden and the forest and it turned out wonderfully not just in appearance but also in taste!

It’s a fairly simple dessert for you to make, but is a little complicated and time consuming. You could of course just make the pannacotta and serve it in glasses…

It’s also the week before lent (for Greeks) this week (Catholics next week) so it’s time to use up all your eggs, milk and cream and cheese and it’s perfect to celebrate the last week of Carnival!

I hope you have a great time! Happy Lent!!

Diffuculty: 3 of 3

Duration:40 mins baking, 1 hour prep and 5 hours waiting time

Serves:8-10

Ingredients

For the Tart you will find it here

For the Pannacotta:

150g full cream milk

4 large leaves of lemongrass

4 sheets of gelatine

750g single cream

200g caster sugar

A little food colouring

For the decoration:

Seasonal fruit and edible flowers

Method

For how to make the base see here

For the baking now:

Preheat the oven to 180C fan forced.

Beat a single egg in a small bowl with a little water and put aside.

Put the rolled out base in a tart pan 25cm in diameter.

Put some greaseproof paper in the tart pan on top of the pastry and fill up the space with rice, pulses or whatever weight you have to keep the paper in place to blind bake the pastry.

Bake the tart base for 20 mins.

Take the tart base out of the oven, remove the paper and weights and make some holes with a fork in the base and return to the oven to bake for another 5 mins.

Take the tart out of the oven, brush over the surface with the egg and water mixture you prepared earlier and return to the oven and bake for a further 20 mins until golden brown.

Take the tart base out of the oven and leave to cool down completely.

If any pieces of pastry have risen above the level of the pan cut them off with a sharp knife the have a level crust.

In the meantime make the filling.

In a saucepan put the milk and the lemon grass which has been cut into 2cm lengths that have been crushed with the knife blade.

Heat on a low temperature and when they start to boil take off the heat and leave for 15-20 minutes for the milk to be infused with the flavour of the lemongrass.

At the same time put the gelatine sheets into bowl of cool water to dissolve.

Put the cream and the sugar into the saucepan and heat them up. Heat up until they start to boil and take it off the heat.

Add the gelatine after squeezing them well and mix in with a whisk.

Take the mixture out of the saucepan and run through a sieve into a bowl squeezing the lemongrass as you do.

At this point if you wish add a little green food colouring.

Leave the mixture to cool and then put in the fridge to set stirring every 15-20 minutes. When the mixture starts to set and has a texture like cream, we can put it into the tart base and then return it to the fridge to set well.

After four hours decorate with seasonal fruit and edible flowers.