Vanilla Panna

This is a guide on how to make Vanilla Panna, or Vanilla Pannacotta without the need for hours of work.

NOTE: These babies are cooling in the walk in up at work right now, I had to take cell-phone picture today but I will have more, 10 mega pixels pictures, on the maro with the finished decorations and more pictures of the ingredients.

History

My cooking mentor once told me "To make good food you must understand the food, to understand the food you must know the history and chemical reactions of the food...Or you could just add some vanilla and caramel to it." So now I'm going to give you a brief history of pannacotta, so skip to the next page if you don't care like me.

Pannacotta literately means "cooked cream" or "cooked custard" in Italian. The main ingredients that make panna panna are the gelatin powder and the heavy cream. without them you would just have a semi-gooey-teeth-roting-thing (sounds like my next instructable). The heat activates the gelatin and when mixed with the heavy cream then refrigerated it will form a solid. The sugar is added to help with the sweetness a bit and even out the vanilla taste. Milk is used to make the panna not a solid chunk and more like jello. Finally Vanilla is used just because I love the taste and because of the combination of the types I'm using it will add some appearance to the dessert.

Step 1 Hunt and Gather

Tools you will need:
Stove
Refrigerator
Stove pot (1 quart or more)
Wire Whisk
X 4-5 oz. containers
Ladle
Measuring Cups
Measuring Spoons
Plastic Wrap.

Ingredients needed:
Unflavored Gelatin - 1 oz. envelope
Milk - .5 cups
Heavy Cream (Whipping Cream) - 2.5 cups
Sugar - .5 cups
Vanilla - Differs by type of vanilla, see vanilla page.

Comments

[Boggo]

Also another option is using whole vanilla pods for the ultimate flavour. Ideally when cooking these light coloured deserts you want to show the black speckle of the vanilla seeds to demonstrate that you have used real vanilla. Vanilla extract does contain the seeds - only whole pods and paste. You would split the pods lengthwise and add with the liquids at the start and heat the mixture including the split pods. You remove the pods at the end after the seeds and flavour have been transfered to the mixture. Don't throw the pods away - just rinse them and use them again. For more info on how to use whole vanilla pods see www.reunionfood.co.nz/vanilla-how-to-use.htm

[ustabahippie]

this is the best dessert in the world! i just went to a party where there was a HUGE pan of panna cotta all tumbled together with fresh berries...pure ambrosia

[Trixtah]

I might give this a go, but I think it'd be nice if you improved the quality of pictures (by a LOT), and you didn't have that brown stuff all over it in the first pic.

[Trixtah]

Um, one tablespoon is 3 teaspoons. Unless you're in Australia, where one Tbl is 4 teaspoons. Since the rest of the world uses 1Tbl = 3 tsp, it might be nice to be clear about which you mean (or just use tsps for this measurement).

[!Andrew_Modder!]

hmm, is this like flan-pudding mixture? looks pretty good tho!

[adrewmc]

It has that texture but the processes involved are different because flan is from Spain/Mexico.