Cooking with beer – Strawberries & Cream beer panna cotta

Beer panna cotta is one of the simplest ways of incorporating ale into your cooking – And in five minutes you too could have a cracking boozy dessert by following our recipe.

The inspiration

A few weeks ago, at a North East beer tasting at Newcastle Wine School, we had a sneak peek of Tyne Bank‘s newly canned Strawberries and Cream ahead of its official launch.

Advice from brewery managing director Julia Austin was that the beer was better at room temperature, as the cooler it is, the less the strawberry flavour would come through.

During the tasting guests agreed and found that the warmer the beer, the fruitier the flavour, and that it began to taste best after a few minutes of putting your hands around the glass.

That got us thinking – What if you heated the beer up by using it as an ingredient in cooking a beer panna cotta?

Ingredients

Three 330ml cans of Tyne Bank Strawberries and Cream

One carton of double cream (We used 284ml of Elmlea)

300ml whole milk

One packet of leaf gelatin (Approx 8 sheets)

250g caster sugar

How to make the beer panna cotta

1. Separate the gelatin sheets and place in cold water for five minutes.
2. While the gelatin is soaking pour two cans of Tyne Bank Strawberries and Cream into a pan over a low heat and gently warm, stirring in the cream, milk and sugar (Don’t let it boil)
3. Stir in the now soaked gelatin sheets one at a time.
4. Turn off the heat and let the mixture begin to cool a bit.
5. Gently pour into ramekins, small bowls, or whatever other receptacle you plan to eat the beer panna cotta out of.
6. Place the ramekins into a baking tray of cold water to cool them down and begin to set your beer panna cotta.
7. After all that hard work (Well, five minutes of it) open and enjoy the third can of Tyne Bank Strawberries and Cream.
8. A little while later transfer your beer panna cotta to the fridge and leave for six hours or more to set.
9. Eat your beer panna cotta with fresh strawberries.