Panna cotta

Panna cotta is definitively one of my favorite desserts. You only need very small portions and you are happy at the end. But I would not complain if I had to deal with two small portions (or three for that matter) to be honest.

Gingerbread pannacotta with Dr. Oetker's vegegel 25/12-2012

I have here two alternative recipes: one very good with regular gelatin and one less good and very unlike panna cotta but still edible based on Dr. Oetker's vegegel.

Flavours

Gingerbread taste 25/12-2012

Saffron taste:
- 1 bag saffron (0,5gr)
Gingerbread taste
- 0,5 teaspoon dry ginger powder
- 1,5 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- optionally 0,5 teaspoons ground cloves
Coffee
- 2 teaspoons ground coffee
Vanilla
- 1 vanilla flower to be cooked in together with the milk and scraped at the end before adding the gelatine

Original recipe

This recipe is very simple and quick to prepare even though it does take time to settle in so prepare it at least 4 hours in advance. But you can prepare it some day before also. Furthermore, in order to avoid it being too hard when eating it, it is highly recommended to put it at room temperature at least half an hour before eating it.

Ingredients for the original  recipe
5dl cream (35-40% fat)
2,5 sheets gelatine
0,5dl sugar
Flavours (see below)

Instructions for the original recipe
Put gelatine sheets in cold water.
Cook cream and sugar. Add gelatine and stir until melted.
Add flavours.
I actually think it becomes quite neat if you put the mixture into small glasses and eat it from there. It is, of course, far more traditional if you instead use a number of small cocottes, wet it with water and pour the mixture into 4 of those. Then whenever ready to serve, you will have to turn the cocottes up and down and serve it on a plate with some decoration (e.g. Lingonberries, raspberry or whatever). For the Vanilla flavoured panna cotta, it is highly recommended to also serve some kind of sauce, e.g. raspberry sauce.

Going veggie

This thing does not give any optimal results and whatever you try, there is no way to get the texture nor the taste of a traditional panna cotta. But the stuff becomes edible anyway, so if you are putting a lot of importance into not eating animals or your guests do, then you might either choose another type of dessert (which to be honest would be my first choice given the results) or try it this way.

Saffron pannacotta with Dr. Oetker's vegegel 25/12-2012

 
Ingredients for the vegetable one
4dl cream
1 bag Dr. Oetker's vegegel
0,4dl sugar
Flavours









Instructions for the veggie recipe
The instructions here are quite unsure.... To be honest I haven't got the "solution" to this problem yet.
But well, I can tell you what I did and what the result was.

Mix 1dl of cream with the vegegel. Cook 3dl cream with the sugar. Add the flavours. Mix the whole together. This is indeed a tricky process as the mixture kind of "thickens up" while working with it, which is suboptimal. The mixture is very prone to "chunking up" and becoming unsmooth.

It is also necessary to work quickly when putting the mixture into small glasses.

I tried to also use a hand blender to mix it up and "break" the chunks. The taste becomes somewhat more "smooth". I actually loved the texture, but it did differ from traditional panna cotta. But on the other side, also the non-mixed one did differ. So... basically, whatever you do, you will never get a real panna cotta out of this vegetarian stuff.