Perfect panna cotta, finally

Tadaa - I finally got what I wanted and succeeded in preparing this kind of panna cotta that I was aiming for. Spoon after spoonful, I got more and more convinced that THIS was IT, the silky panna cotta I was aiming for, when I prepared this and this. Of course, this divine chocolate panna cotta was also full of tasty calories, but hey, who cares about that, when you have just managed to prepare something that has been your goal.

I also followed the advice of “Perficting panna cotta” and the result was worth it. The dark chocolate I used, had some tiny pieces of nuts in it, as you can see in the picture, but I guess the end result will be just as good with plain dark chocolate.

For two large or four small panna cottas you’ll need:

250 ml whipping cream

125 g Mascarpone cheese

2 gelatin sheets and some cold water

2 tbsp sugar

100 g dark chocolate, broken into pieces

 

# Pour 150 ml whipping cream into a heavy saucepan, also add mascarpone cheese. Bring to boil and add sugar. Stir.

# Add the chocolate pieces and whisk until smooth. Remove from heat.

# Soak gelatin sheets in cold water.

# Whip the remaining 100 ml whipping cream until stiff.

# Remove excess water from the gelatin sheets and add it to the chocolate-cream. Stir until well blended.

# Carefully add the whipping cream into the mixture. Stir and let cool at room temperature for about 1 hour. Then pour into the dessert dishes or ramekins and refrigerate until set.

# When serving, dip the ramekins one at a time into a bowl of hot water for about 3 seconds, run a sharp knife around the edges of the custard and invert onto a chilled serving plate. Serve with some sweet sauce (you might get some ideas from my previous panna cotta recipes).

I only offered the simplest strawberry jam as a sauce because I did not have anything else at hand. And because I was hungry.  Nevertheless, it tasted great. It’s pretty heavy, so weight watchers, I suggest you to skip it..or maybe use cream instead of mascarpone…

Im very happy with the end result. Finally I succeeded in proving J that panna cotta can be a decent dessert. He told me that from now on I am the Queen of Panna Cottas. Yess!

Below a video which also introduces the basics of making panna cotta, but with vanilla and raspberries. It will give you a good overview of making this lovely dish and probably will take away your fears which you had on making this dessert.

Jelled coconut, anyone?

Well, I don’t know. It was suppose to be a panna cotta - but as I haven’t managed to prepare a proper panna cotta yet (as you can read from here), I don’t even know how a proper panna cotta should look and taste like. This time I ended up with something in between a jelly and a panna cotta, maybe because I changed the original recipe quite a bit… But I liked it though. As for J, this was apparently not his cup of tea. So I don’t know. Should do it again one day and serve it to more than two persons to get their opinion.

For two big or four small panna cottas you will need:

300 ml coconut milk

200 ml whipping cream

2 gelatin sheets and water for soaking

0.5 tsp rum extract or 1 tbsp light rum

about 2-3 tbsp sugar (depending on the sweetness of the coconut milk) + additional 4 tbps  sugar for the caramel

 

#  In a dry heavy saucepan cook sugar over moderately low heat, stirring slowly with a fork (to help sugar melt evenly), until melted and pale golden. Cook caramel, without stirring, until deep golden.

# Coat bottoms of 2 big or 4 small molds or ramekins with caramel. Set aside.

# Place gelatin sheets into cold water to soften.

# In a large saucepan bring coconut milk just to a boil, stirring. Add sugar - a few tablespoons (I added 2), until the mix is sweet enough for you (keep in mind that the caramel sauce will give you extra sweetness). Remove pan from heat.

# Remove excess water from the gelatin sheets and add it to the hot coconut milk, stirring until dissolved. Also stir in rum extract.

# Whip the cream until stiff. Carefully stir into the coconut milk and let cool at room temperature for about 30 minutes up to 2 hours. Why - read more at the bottom of this post.

# When cooled, stir the mixture well and divide among molds or ramekins which you coated with caramel. Chill desserts until firm, at least 4 hours, and up to 2 days.

# To unmold panna cottas, dip molds or ramekins, 1 at a time, into a bowl of hot water for 3 seconds. Run a thin knife around edges and invert desserts onto a platter. The caramel has been liquefied and will give you a nice sweet syrupy sauce.

I suggest to hold some crushed caramel at hand to sprinkle it on top for a garnish with nice texture.

So there you go. I liked that it was very light and that there was no need to start preparing extra sauce - everything was done in one go. But maybe I would use less gelatin the next time, so that it would be a bit less firm and more like a real panna cotta.

All in all, I was happy with it and a bonus was that I was able to use up the leftover coconut milk which I had from preparing curry for dinner.

Im getting all excited about different foodblog events…already found a second one to participate - Suganya is currently hosting fruit of the month and - you guessed it -  this lucky fruit is…coconut!

Pepper crêpes

Another kind of pancakes. This time with filling which has seasoned with pepper. I agree with Evelin - lemon and pepper are a combination magnifico. If you don’t like dishes with a lot of pepper - just be careful with pepper and taste the filling before adding all the seasoning.

If you have a food processor, a blender or a hand mixer, you are lucky. With any of those gadgets you’ll be able to prepare this dish super quickly. No stirring and mixing with your hand, just pushing the button (off topic - I just love my blender). So anyways, I was even that lazy that used the blender to mix the crêpes’ batter. But you see - it was a weekend morning and I was terribly hungry. Excuses, excuses…

Anyway. For the crêpes, just use the kind of recipe you have used to use. I have yet to find my very special fool-proof recipe, so I keep testing every time. This wasn’t very bad actually, I got nice and thin crêpes, just the way I like them. And exactly the amount I was aiming for - 5 crêpes. So I just write it down for myself to remember.

1 large egg (about 60 g)

100 ml warm milk

2 tbsp melted butter

0.25 tsp salt

1 tbsp sugar

0.5 tsp cardamon

3 heaped tbsp flour

 

# Combine all the ingredients in a blender and process for about 30 seconds, until smooth. Chill for at least 30 minutes during which you can prepare the filling and the sauce.

 

For the filling I used 250 g of ricotta, which was maybe a bit too much for five crêpes. Maybe next time I would use 175-200 g max. But you never know, one can not forecast how hungry she will be the next time she’ll prepare those crêpes…But in any case, here’s the recipe I used:

 

250 g ricotta

3 tbsp honey

1 tbsp ground black pepper

2 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp grated lemon rind

 

# Extra simple to prepare with a gadget - just combine everything and blend to smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning to your liking. Don’t make it too sweet, because the sauce itself is already pretty sweet. The filling can be made ahead of time as well, just keep it in the fridge until serving.

For the sauce you’ll need:

a handful of redcurrants

50 ml water

1.5 tbsp sugar

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tbsp cornstarch + 2 tbsp cold water

# In a medium saucepan, combine currants, water, sugar and ginger. Bring to boil.

# In a separate bowl mix water with cornstarch and add to the sauce. Boil for about 1 minute and remove from heat.

# I suggest to keep it in warm and bring to boil again just before serving.

# When all that is done, you should be ready to prepare the crêpes. Keep them warm until serving.

And now a bit about the serving. The way I did it was the following: when the last crêpe was on the frying pan, I placed the serving plates into the microwave oven for about 40 seconds, just to warm them up. You know, warm plates keep the dish warm as well.  

For rolling I used another plate: just placed a crêpe on a plate (which does not have to be warm as this will go quickly), spread about 2 tbsp of the filling to my side of the crêpe and started rolling, also from my side of the crêpe. If you place the filling in the centre, it is not that easy to get nice rolls. But I guess you know it already anyway. So, when you have the roll ready, place it to the warm serving plate. Do the same with all the other crêpes. Easy as that. As I had 5 crêpes, I halved the last roll. To be fair and equal.  

And then I poured the rolls over with the hot sauce. And served immediately, otherwise there is no point in warming the plates.

J had a few bites and then went to the kitchen, brought a banana and sliced it next to the the crêpes. A good idea. But I liked it even without the banana. Especially this lemony-peppery filling,  which, using Evelin’s words, leaves the mouth sighing warmly in the most pleasant way possible.

Yesterday I found out that Susan is planning to hold a tribute to pancakes, hosting a deliciously sounding “Pancakes on Parade“. I think my crêpes would fit in perfectly. This will be my first ever food blog event, whopee

Chocolate risotto

Who says that risotto has to be salty. You can actually make a lovely dessert using chocolate and risotto rice, which looks pretty qute and is very simple to prepare. Delia Smith has a recipe for preparing the dish in the oven. I have tried a different version - and was very happy with the result.

The only thing to recommend is that when you decide to serve it as a dessert, make sure you avoid a lot of rice, pasta or potatoes in your main course. Otherwise you’ll get an overdose from starch and your stomach will grow into a size of a huge beach ball.

Serves two:

90 g risotto rice

1 tbsp butter

100 g mascarpone cheese

200 ml milk

2 tbsp sugar

100 g dark chocolate, broken into pieces

fresh strawberries and strawberry jam to serve

 

# Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan. Add rice and stir, coating the rice evenly with the butter.

# Add milk and mascarpone into the saucepan and simmer at low heat for about 20 minutes, or until the rice is cooked. Don’t forget to stir, otherwise the dish might burn. In case the milk and cheese have evaporated but the rice is still not cooked, add some more milk (50 ml at a time) and keep simmering until the rice is ready.

# Season with sugar and add chocolate pieces into the saucepan. Stir, simmer for another few minutes and remove from heat. You might want to add some cinnamon or Baileys to taste - but for me chocolate with rice was already enough.

# Serve with some fresh strawberries and strawberry jam.

J told me that this dessert tasted like Kellogg’s Rice Krispies…And when I started to wear a sullen expression, he tried to cheer me up and gave some good words and finally admitted that it was a joke and that the dessert is great and I should do it again. Most likely I will. Suggest you to try it. Its a good way to use up this leftover risotto rice which is not enough to make a proper meal but is just enough for a dessert.

An excellent idea from the Leftover Queen

Somehow I have developed a habit that every meal (especially dinner) has to end with some kind of a dessert. Which is why I ended up eating cakes, pies, ice cream, cookies and some other delicious stuff in the evening…But if one wants to keep wearing the same clothes, not a few size bigger, one can not live like this forever. So, I have left the cookies and the ice cream at the store and tried to prepare some light desserts. And below you’ll find one of not-so-heavy dessert, idea came from the Leftover Queen.

First of all, you should use fresh fruits. I only had can of apricots at hand, so I had to go with them…next time though would try with some fresh apricots. So, I was sure that I had a can of halved apricots and prepared the filling. Then I opened the can and discovered that instead of apricot halves, the can contained sliced apricots…so I had to quickly improvise - and decided to prepare those small light snacks in foiled tartlet pans. Came out perfectly!

ca 200 g ripe apricots (ca 4-5)

2 tbsp butter, softened

2 tbsp sugar

1 egg yolk

handful of chopped unsalted pistachio nuts 100 g ricotta

# In a mixing bowl, cream butter with sugar until fluffy.

# Beat in egg yolk, then fold in remaining ingredients (keep a tbsp of pistachio nuts as topping).

# If you use whole apricots, cut them in half and remove stones. Place them into the baking dish and divide the mixture evenly among apricot halves. Top with some pistachios. Bake at 180 degrees C for about 30 minutes or until apricots are juicy and the stuffing is browned.

# If you use apricot slices as I did, foil the tartlet pans (I used 6 pans) and place 3-4 apricot slices at the top of the pan. Cover apricot slices with the mixture and top with some pistachios. Bake at 180 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

# Both cases immediate serving is suggested - they taste better when warm. Can be topped with fresh whipped cream as well…

Very tasty! Apricot turns nice and juicy in the oven and pairs well with pistachios. You might want to serve the dessert with some light-flavoured sauce - so that the snacks wouldn’t look lonely in the plate - but I did not have time to come up with the sauce, I was too hungry…This filling is perfect for tartlets as well

And as you can see, I decided to prepare tartlets with this filling, when I had some dough left in the fridge from making the coconut cheesecake (I used up the other half of the dough). I made the same amount of the filling and divided the dough between 6 tartlet pans. Topped with the filling and some extra chopped pistachios. Baked at 180 degrees C for about 25 minutes and served when warm. I guess when you have some bigger tartlet pans, you might want to add some apricot slices at the bottom…But even without the apricot they still tasted great!