Ingredients
Edible gold leaf (optional) 

Ingredients for the panna cotta  
120g caster sugar  
1 vanilla bean, split, seeds scraped  
¼ tonka bean, grated 
600ml cream  

150ml milk
2 sheets of platinum grade leaf gelatin (I use De Oetker)

Ingredients for the macarons 
150g caster sugar  
110g egg whites, split into two
1g powdered egg white  
150g ground almonds 
150g icing sugar  
Green food colouring  
ground cinnamon, for dusting  
pistachios, to decorate  

Ingredients for the filling - keep cold until you are ready to make and use 
100ml of whipping cream 
150g mascarpone 
1 tsp vanilla extract,  
60g icing sugar 

Equipment Needed 
4 panna cotta moulds or ramekins 
Sugar thermometer 
Macaron moulds or a baking tray with a silpat liner or parchment paper 

Method
Put the gelatine into 100ml cold milk.

To make the panna cotta, put the sugar, vanilla seeds and tonka bean in a small saucepan and cook over medium heat until the sugar has melted and the mixture is caramel in colour.   When you are mixing caramel with a lot of cream or milk, you want to push the caramel to a the colour of toffee.  A slight word of caution here, once the caramel gets to a golden colour it burns fairly quickly and easily so be watchful.  The caramel will take at least 10 minutes.

While the caramel is cooking and the gelatine softening, heat the cream in a small saucepan to just below boiling point, making sure you do not let it boil.  When the caramel is ready quickly, remove from the heat add the warm cream, it will spit a bit so be careful. 

Stir the gelatine and milk into the cream mixture and strain through a sieve into a jug.  Pour into four 125ml panna cotta moulds. Refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight.

To make the macarons, preheat the oven to 180c and line line 2 baking trays.

Make an Italian meringue by combining 40ml of water with the caster sugar in a saucepan and cook until it reads 121c on a sugar thermometer.  Beat 55g of egg whites and the powdered egg whites in a bowl with either a stand mixer or an electric hand whisk until soft peaks form. Slowly add the hot sugar syrup to the egg white while beating continuously, being careful not to hit the whisk itself.

Sift the ground almonds and icing sugar together and then mix through the second 55g of egg whites.  Add to the meringue and mix through in a folding motion.  Take out half of the mixture and put into a piping bag fitted with a 1cm nozzle.  Put to one side.  With the other half of the mixture add a drop of green food colouring and ½ tsp of pistachio extract and gently mix through.  You are looking for a pale green colour so don’t add too much green.  Put into a piping bag fitted with a 1cm nozzle.

Pipe 4 cm circles of each colour macaron onto the prepared trays. The best way to pipe is to hold the nozzle still and squeeze out until you have the right amount rather than piping around the edge and ‘filling in’.  Once you have piped out all of your mixture tap the tray gently on the worksurface to remove any excess air from the mixture. Dust the white macarons with cinnamon, and top half of the green macarons with half a pistachio.  

Leave macarons on the side for an hour to dry out and form a skin on the surface of them. Place into the oven and turn off the heat for 6 minutes. After 6 minutes turn the oven back on, put to 140c and cook for about 10 mins, or until the macarons can be lifted easily off of the tray.  Put to one side to cool down for half an hour.

Make sure the cream and mascarpone are super cold.  In a bowl take the mascarpone and beat with a wooden spoon.  In another bowl take the cream vanilla extract and icing sugar and whip until the cream resembles fluffy cloud.  Gently fold the mascarpone through.  Put into a piping bag.

To fill the macarons, very carefully pipe around the edges of a macaron and then into the middle. Sandwich two sides very very carefully together as they are very fragile.  For the pistachio meringues, ensure you top with a side with a pistachio.