Panna Cotta

How to cook the cream

For this sweet dish you need natural cream with 30-35% fat. I think you can also use lower-fat cream if you add enough thickener. If you have the time and the desire to thicken the cream with egg whites over a water bath, give it a try. Instant gelatin, which is easy to buy, makes the recipe for jelly much simpler and saves time.

1. Slowly bring the cream to a boil in a saucepan of a suitable size. Make sure it doesn’t curdle and no “grains” appear in the liquid, since powdered cream is sold more often than natural cream.

   

2. As soon as the cream boils, add the white sugar. Stir until the sugar has completely dissolved. Don’t rush the heating: let the cream with sugar warm over low heat.

   

3. Add the vanilla and pour in 30 ml of the liqueur. Vanillin is most often sold as crystals in sachets or as “vanilla sugar”. In that case it is better to add it to the cream together with the sugar. It is very convenient to use liquid vanilla extract, or to put a natural vanilla pod split in half into the cream and remove it afterwards. The amount of vanilla is to taste.

   I added Baileys, an Irish cream liqueur. If you like, you can use a coffee, orange or even mint liqueur. If the dessert is meant for children, it is better to skip the alcohol, although alcohol evaporates very quickly during cooking.

   

4. Cook the mixture over very low heat, stirring fairly vigorously, for 10-12 minutes. This is the very heart of the dessert: cooked cream. Never let the cream scorch or curdle.

How to add the gelatin

5. While the mixture is cooking, dissolve the gelatin: put the instant gelatin in a small cup and pour 50 ml of boiled water at room temperature over it. Gelatin swells very quickly and is ready to use after a short while.

6. Carefully pour the dissolved gelatin into the cooked cream.

   

   Stir the mixture and bring it to the point of boiling. Take the saucepan off the heat immediately.

   

7. Get rid of the air bubbles: stir the mixture gently for a while. It is best if no bubbles remain in the mixture, as they spoil the look of the dessert a little. You can prick them with a toothpick or, as many advise, strain the cream through a sieve.

   

How to pour and chill

8. Prepare the molds: wash porcelain or glass molds and wipe them dry. Small bowls shaped like half a sphere work very well. They are convenient, and the panna cotta comes away from the sides easily under its own weight. Grease the inside walls of the molds thoroughly with a piece of cold butter; you should get a very thin layer.

9. Divide the cooked cream evenly among the molds. Ideally the molds should hold all the cream with 3-4 mm left to the rim. Don’t pour the cream so that it splashes and forms foam and air bubbles.

   

   Put the molds in the refrigerator, covering each one so the cream doesn’t dry out. Chill the dessert for at least a few hours. It is convenient to make it in the evening and leave it in the cold overnight.

Serving

10. Shortly before serving, turn the dessert out onto a flat plate. Pour water heated in a kettle to 60-70°C into a deep plate. Dip the bottom of the mold into the warm water for 30-60 seconds or longer, so the thin layer of dessert touching the walls of the mold melts a little. Cover the mold with the prepared plate and flip it in one motion. If the outer layer has melted, the cream dessert will drop onto the plate under its own weight. You can help it by gently tapping the bottom of the mold with your palm.

    

    If the dessert turns out a little runny, you can put the plate in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. In that case, by the way, the surface of the dessert gets a lovely glossy shine, which I actually like.

11. Decorate the dessert with almost any jam, syrup, berries and fruit, caramel and so on. Here you can let your imagination run free. As a rule, a spoonful of cherry preserves or raspberry jam is enough, poured so that it runs down the side onto the plate.

    

    Fruit slices around the edge look very impressive, and you can slice the fruit thinly and arrange it in a mix. And, a favorite from childhood, a cherry on top of the dessert.