Panna Cotta With Fresh Berries and Chocolate Sauce
"This is one of my favorite desserts, especially to serve to guests. It's fast, easy, and it requires chill time, which makes it perfect for advance preparation. I guess panna cotta isn't the most common dessert, because, despite its simplicity, I get raves and quizzes over the ingredients every time. The panna cotta recipe is courtesy of Giada De Laurentiis, from Food Network's "Everyday Italian," and the chocolate sauce comes from Tyler Florence's "Food 911." The sauce recipe makes quite a bit - you'll have some leftover - but I don't cut it because I like to have it the day after with the leftover berries.:) Cooking time is chill time."
- Ready In:
- 6hrs 15mins
- Ingredients:
- 11
- Serves:
-
6
ingredients
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1 tablespoon unflavored gelatin
- 3 cups whipping cream
- 1⁄3 cup honey
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 pinch salt
- 2 cups assorted fresh berries (I usually use blueberries, raspberries, and chopped strawberries)
-
Sauce
- 3⁄4 cup heavy cream
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1⁄2 lb semisweet chocolate, cut in chunks
- 1⁄4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
directions
- Place the milk in a small bowl.
- Sprinkle the gelatin over. Let stand for 3 to 5 minutes to soften the gelatin.
- Pour milk mixture into a heavy saucepan and stir over medium heat just until the gelatin dissolves but the milk does not boil, about 5 minutes.
- Add the cream, honey, sugar, and salt.
- Stir until the sugar dissolves, 5 to 7 minutes.
- Remove from the heat.
- Pour into 6 wine glasses so that they are 1/2 full.
- Cool slightly.
- Refrigerate until set, at least 6 hours.
-
For the sauce:
- Combine the cream and butter in a small heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat.
- Heat the mixture until bubbles appear around the sides of the pot, but do not allow the cream to boil.
- Mix in the chocolate and vanilla; remove from the heat and stir until the chocolate melts and the sauce is smooth.
- May be made ahead of time and rewarmed over low heat on the stovetop, or in the microwave on medium power.
- Spoon berries atop the panna cotta, drizzle generously with chocolate sauce.
- Top with more berries and a decorative drizzling of sauce, and serve.
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Reviews
-
This is fabulous! I made this for my monthly dinner club and did not add fruit to the recipe and everyone devoured it. They even enjoyed it without the chocolate sauce. Due to lack of time instead of refrigerating the dish, I put it in the freezer for a couple of hours. It worked just as well. I will definitely make this again. So easy and fabulous! -
Scene from a restaurant -- Sushiman: Do you want dessert? Me: Not really, I'll just have some of yours. Sushiman: You want to order panna cotta again, don't you..... Me: Well, it is one of my favorite desserts, and I never make it at home. Sushiman: I'm getting bloody sick of you always ordering panna cotta, why can't you ever order anything else? I want the mousse cake, order your own bloody panna cotta! Me: As you wish... It's true, I really should order something else when we go out to eat, but I really never make this at home, and I do LOVE panna cotta. So I decided to try and make it at home, how difficult can it be? Not every. Easy, in fact. I didn't change a thing in this recipe, except for the fact that we really don't have fresh berries here in Israel, the imported stuff is waaaaay too expensive (even if I am worth it), and our strawberry season is in the winter (go figure). So I used frozen berries and just pureed them into a coulis, and spooned half of that on top, and the other half got the chocolate sauce bath. Yummy! Sushiman's in trouble now, I may be making this for dessert each time from now on. Thanks!
