Panna cotta (‘cooked cream’)
This is a classical Italian dessert traditionally served with fruit puree or fruit salad of the season, with strawberries the firm favourite south of the Alps.
Ingredients
- 500 ml double cream
- 1 vanilla pod
- 70 g caster sugar
- 1 sachet powdered gelatin
Method
- Soak the gelatin in a little bit of water. Split the vanilla pod, scrape the seeds into the cream, add the pod and the sugar and bring the mixture to a boil. Take off the heat, dissolve the gelatin and slowly pour into the hot cream, discard the vanilla pod. Set aside to cool and continue to whisk occasionally until well cooled (to avoid that the cream and gelatin separate). When mixture starts to set, pour into small moulds and put in the fridge to set.
Variations
This can be flavoured in many different ways (omitting the vanilla). Dissolve some cocoa powder in the hot mixture (before adding the gelatin) to get a slippery chocolate-flavoured panna cotta. Add 2-3 tbsp of soluble coffee powder. A naughty flavour would be to add a shot of cognac or whisky. A more unusual flavour would be to replace the vanilla pod by a sprig of rosemary.