Apparently, ‘kissing’s in season when gorse is in bloom’. Gorse blooms twice in Scotland, so the good news is, you can pucker up most of the year! Sarah Rankin’s cookbook Kith is split into seasonal sections, and contains lots of delightful dishes. Our recipe of the week, taken from the spring section, is the delicious gorse panna cotta.

Gorse Panna Cotta

Gorse flowers have a sublet toasted coconut/almond scent and a very slightly bitter flavour that works really well in creamy, milky deserts. The delicate notes it gives this panna cotta are to die for. It works really well in crème pâtissière or crème diplomat too.

Serves 6

280ml whole milk
100g gorse petals
600ml double cream
80g golden caster sugar
3 leaves gelatine
cold water

Harvesting the flowers:

You will need gloves to harvest the leaves, as gorse is prickly. This is a labour of love, so lean into it. Be prepared to spend a bit of time collecting enough for this recipe. For very densely flowered stems, you could cut the branch and freeze it, then shake the petals off, but I think some of the flavour is lost in that process. You’ll need a carrier bag full (ish). Give up when your hands are too scratched to carry on.

When preparing the flowers for your dessert, you need to remove everything but the petals themselves. The stem, stamen and brownish outer leaves are all bitter and will ruin the delicate nuttiness of your panna cotta, so take some time to prepare properly for maximum sweetness and flavour.

Method:

Heat the milk to a simmer, remove from the heat and add the gorse petals (reserve a few to candy by dipping in egg white, then caster sugar, for decoration). Leave to steep for 4 hours.

Strain and add the flavoured milk to a pan with the double cream and sugar, and heat until just boiled. Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water for a couple of minutes and squeeze out. Remove the cream mixture from the heat and whisk in the gelatine.

Pour into chilled moulds and freeze for at least 6 hours. Once the panna cottas are set, dip them very quickly into hot water to loosen, and turn out.