Panna Cotta

This picture is a good likeness to my Panna Cotta.

I believe I promised this recipe last week. *sigh* Better late than never I suppose! This is a beautiful silky textured dessert that is rich, but fairly light at the same time. I've been toying with the idea that you could make chocolate or coffee panna cotta with just a few small additions and adjustments.

Panna Cotta

1 1/2 cups milk
3 teaspoons gelatine
1 1/2 cups cream
1/3 cup castor sugar

1. Use your fingertips to lightly smear the inside of six individual 150ml moulds with almond or light olive oil. Place 3 tablespoons of the milk in a small bowl and sprinkle with gelatine; leave to dissolve for a few minutes. (I had Miss Mischief stir this for me while I was doing step 2.)
2. Put the remaining milk in a pan with the cream and sugar and heat gently while stirring, until almost boiling. Remove the pan from the heat; whisk the gelatine into the cream mixture and whisk until dissolved. Leave to cool for 5 minutes.
3. Pour the mixture into the moulds and chill until set (about 4 hours). Unmould and serve.

To unmould, warm the mould with warm water (on the outside) and slip a knife down the side and tip so the panna cotta slides onto a plate. Or do what I did and just serve the sauce in the top of the mould. I used teacups, because that's all I had that was suitable.

I served this with a raspberry and red wine sauce. You could also serve it with chocolate sauce, caramel sauce or coffee sauce...whatever takes your fancy.

To make a chocolate panna cotta, add 100g dark chocolate pieces and add at the end of step 2, before setting aside to cool. Stir until the chocolate is melted.

I also have a theory that if you added a strong shot of real coffee so that it is the equivalent of a latte, you could make a coffee panna cotta. As long as the milk quantity remains the same (ie, the shot of coffee is part of the 1 1/2 cups milk) it should work fine.