Coconut Panna Cotta and Passion Fruit Eggs
Coconut Panna Cotta and Passion Fruit Eggs

Coconut Panna Cotta and Passion Fruit Eggs

  • Prep time:

  • Cook time:

  • Total time:

  • Portion/Yield:

    Makes 18 eggs

  • Difficulty:

    Intermediate

This is the perfect party recipe, it raises the eyebrows every time they are served. The eggs turn the conversation to food, even though sometimes it may only last for a few minutes, but for me it’s enough, as it gives me the feeling of “mission accomplished”. I do have a slight mission in life to make food fun for all people and to encourage them to cook by raising their curiosity in the culinary arts. This will satisfy my life long passion to make cooking both interesting and entertaining for both myself and others.

The trickiest part of making this dish is to open and clean out the egg shells without breaking them. I normally calculate a few extra eggs as you are guaranteed to have a few casualties along the way. Another piece of reasonable and sound advice is unless you have a brigade of ten chefs’ I would not attempt to make this dish for a large party as cleaning out the eggs can be a very timely experience. I suppose you could make them in small cups or glasses but then the magic, fun and the cleverness of the dish is lost.

Cutting the egg shell whilst raw is tricky and I found this fantastic tool called a “egg topper” that does it perfectly….. well it does require a bit of practice and a few extra eggs. You can try other gadgets however I cannot vow for them as I have only used the “egg topper” myself.

If coconut is not quite your thing you could make a plain vanilla panna cotta and exchange the passion fruit for other yellow or orange colour fruits such as mirabel’s, mangoes, clementines, oranges or apricots. The success of the dish is the contrast between sweet and sour and for that reason I have chosen coconut for the egg white and passion fruit for the yolk.

These coconut panna cotta and passion fruit eggs are the perfect canape party dish, as you can make them up to two days in advance. Serve them in the original egg boxes they came in or as I have done in the past, spray paint the egg boxes to suit your theme, I found that gold spray paint works brilliantly. It is interesting to see peoples reaction, as when they give them a second look, a smile is guaranteed to emerge once they realise what they are looking at.photo of Coconut Panna Cotta and Passion Fruit Eggsphoto of Coconut Panna Cotta and Passion Fruit Eggsphoto of Coconut Panna Cotta and Passion Fruit Eggs

Ingredients & Method

For the egg preparation and panna cotta

  • 18 medium free range eggs
  • 500ml coconut milk
  • 100ml double cream
  • 120g white chocolate
  • 4 leaves of gelatine, bloomed

Passion Fruit Jelly

  • 250g passion fruit puree
  • 50g caster sugar
  • 2 leaves of gelatine, bloomed

First prepare and clean the eggs. This task is time consuming and you should take extra care to keep the number of broken eggs to a minimum. Preheat the oven to 100°C. Place a cooling rack over a baking tray. Use a egg topper to crack the top of the egg carefully, then remove the top and any small bits of loose shell. Empty the contents from the shell, keep the egg yolk and whites to make other dishes. Carefully wash the shell in warm water, rub your finger on the inside to remove any bits of the membrane. Place the cleaned empty egg shells onto the cooling rack and place them  into the preheated oven for 25 minutes. Let the sterilized egg shells cool completely before you fill them with the coconut panna cotta mixture.

For the panna cotta, in a medium saucepan bring the coconut milk and double cream to the boil, simmer for one minute, remove the saucepan from the heat and add the white chocolate. Squeeze the gelatine leaves to remove the excess water and add the gelatine to the warm coconut mixture, stir until the chocolate and the gelatine are dissolved. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve and pour it into the prepared egg shells. Carefully transfer the eggs to the fridge and leave them to set completely. I normally leave the eggs for about 4 hours to set completely.

Once the coconut panna cotta has set, use a small parisienne scoop to to scoop out a small bit from the center to make a small indent. This is for the passion fruit jelly which resembles the egg yolk.

Only prepare the passion fruit jelly when the coconut panacotta is completely set and you have scooped out the holes in the center of the panacotta.

Mix the passion fruit puree and sugar together, heat over low heat in a small saucepan until it starts to bubble, remove the saucepan from the heat. Squeeze the gelatine leaves to remove the excess water and add the gelatine to the warm passion fruit mixture, stir until the gelatine is dissolved. Pass the passion fruit puree through a fine sieve and leave to cool completely but not set, it must still be pourable. Pour the passion fruit jelly carefully into the centre of the coconut panacotta. Carefully return the eggs to the fridge to set the passion fruit jelly, this should take about 2 hours.

Serve the eggs in the egg boxes with small spoons.

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