A Spoonful of Sugar

I'm a real sucker for cute fruits.

I found some little donut (or saturn) peaches at the supermarket and after exclaiming in delight at their shape, I bought a few with nothing in particular in mind.

Fast forward a few days, and after trying one, I thought it might be best to poach them. It might just have been that one peach, but it wasn't as juicy and sweet as its fragrance had led me to expect. Poaching is a great way to improve disappointing peaches (and other fruit).

However, I only had two little peaches left and it seemed mean to just serve up one fruit apiece for dessert. So I threw the fridge door open and waited for inspiration to hit me. And it did.

In the depths of the fridge sat a half-full pot of cream and a tub of low-fat Greek yoghurt. Combined with some toffee-ish eucalyptus honey and gelatine, I knew they'd make an awesome panna cotta. Yoghurt--or yogurt if you're across the pond--may not be a traditional ingredient of panna cotta, but it really does make a superb modern version. Seriously creamy, without burdening you with too much guilt, and a lovely little tang at the end that keeps you coming back for more.

I poached the peaches in some wine syrup. Alas, no recipe here. I just chucked the end of a bottle of cava into a pan, threw in some sugar and let it boil for a few minutes before adding the peaches. They poached for no longer than 10 minutes before cooling in the now rosy-pink liquid. I think the best thing about the donut peaches is popping out the stone from the middle of the fruit and being left with a perfect ring of white peach. So cute.

Finally I also made some pine nut brittle to add some crunch, since both the peaches and panna cotta were very smooth. Making brittle is really easy as long as you avoid burning the sugar mixture. My first attempt involved a sugar thermometer and resulted in some ghastly-tasting burnt brittle as I chose to believe the thermometer rather than my nose. The damn thing's going in the bin.

I'm pretty proud of how well this dessert turned out. The panna cotta was just set, with that sexy wobble that is the hallmark of all great panna cottas, and it was incredibly creamy. The peaches turned out fresh, juicy and silky smooth with an incredible fragrance enhanced by the wine. And let's not forget the crunch factor! The slightly salty crunchiness of the pine nut brittle was fantastic with the other components.

If there was such a thing as a dessert Olympics, this would run a very close second--maybe even a photo-finish would be required--to the strawberry soup. It's that good.