pana cotta

I love this dessert and the great thing about Panna Cotta is that it demands to be made in advance. You can make them up to two days ahead and keep them well-covered and chilled.If you want to cut the richness of Panna Cotta, you can swap out half-and-half for some, or all of the heavy cream. Because there’s no eggs or custard-making involved, you pretty much have a lot of leeway making panna cotta. I’m thinking of infusing some with lemon verbena, fresh mint, or even experimenting with white chocolate in the future. Especially with fresh cherry season right around the corner.
 
INGREDIENTS :
1l heavy cream (1000 ml) 
100g  sugar
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract or 1 vanilla bean split lengthwise 
6 gelatin leaves (about 4 1/2 teaspoons)
6 tablespoons (90ml) cold water- if you want...
PREPARATION: 
1. Heat the heavy cream and sugar in a saucepan. Once the sugar is dissolved, keep fire to simmer and stir in the vanilla extract.

 
(If using a vanilla bean, scrape the seeds from the bean into the cream and add the bean pod. Cover, and let infuse for 30 minutes. Remove the bean then rewarm the mixture before continuing.)
2. Lightly oil the shaping moulds with a neutral-tasting oil.
3. Soften 25g (approximately six sheets) in a liter of cold water for 5 to 10 minutes. Wring the sheets out and stir them into the warm Panna Cotta mixture  until dissolved.
4. Divide the Panna Cotta mixture into the prepared cups, then chill them until firm, which will take at least 2- 4 hours.
5. Run a sharp knife around the edge of each Panna Cotta and unmold each onto a serving plate, and garnish as desired.
 Here I used different flavours to decorate the panna cotta like lemon zest, strawberry, blueberry. 

To grate the zest of lemon from 1 full lemon.

Set the panna cotta mixture in shaping moulds.

 

 

 

After setting the blueberry panna cotta

After setting the strawberry panna cotta

 To make Panna Cotta with powdered gelatin:
2 packets powdered gelatin (about 4 1/2 teaspoons).Sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water in a medium-sized bowl and let stand 5 to 10 minutes.Pour the very warm Panna Cotta mixture over the gelatin and stir until the gelatin is completely dissolved.