About Panna Cotta
Panna Cotta, literally “cooked cream”, is an elegant dessert from the Piedmont dairy country of Italy. Rich cream, yogurt, and sometimes marscapone or sour cream is cooked and set with gelatin, sweetened with honey or sugar, and perhaps flavored with any variety of spices, fruits and chocolates. Readers may be familiar with a cousin known as blancmange, literally “white eat”, a bouncier firmer version with more gelatin, usually set in fancy tin molds with elaborate patterns, and served with a red wine sauce. The best panna cottas, according to Camilla V. Saulsbury, the author of the recipe tome Panna Cotta, have “very little gelatin; the result is not a solid gel, but rather a softly set, fine slip of a dessert, akin to the creamiest gelato or ice cream, without the freezing.”
Recipe for Lavender Panna Cotta
Lavender blossoms are steeped in rich cream before the gelatin and whole milk yogurt are added for thickening and tang. The resulting panna cotta has a floral taste and pairs well with a sweet blueberry sauce made by stewing either fresh or frozen berries with honey.
- finished product topped with blueberry coulis, fresh blackberries, and lemon zest
- lavender blossoms close up
- putting four ramekins in a pan makes it easier to transport in and out of the fridge.
- tools used to make panna cotta (ramekin, wisk, rubber spatula, measuring cup)
