Chocolate Panna Cotta with Strawberry Sauce

This is one of the numerous posts that has been languishing in my drafts folder for months now. Blogging is beginning to seem like "work" these days!


Panna cotta is an Italian dessert made by simmering together cream, milk and sugar, mixing this with gelatin, and letting it cool until set. An Italian phrase which literally means "cooked cream", it generally refers to a creamy, set dessert from the Northern Italian region of Piedmont. It is eaten all over Italy where it is served with wild berries, caramel or chocolate sauce. (Source: Wikipedia)


Recipe source: Williams-Sonoma

For the chocolate panna cotta:
Ingredients:
1 ¾ cups heavy cream
1 packet/envelope plain gelatin( Strict vegetarians, please use whatever substitutes you have available.)
2 Tbsp Mascarpone cheese
3 Tbsp sugar
A pinch of salt
2 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped
Fresh strawberry sauce, recipe follows

Method:
Coat four small ramekins or custard cups lightly with flavorless oil. I used small steel tumblers.

Pour about ¼ cup of the cream into a small microwave safe bowl, sprinkle the gelatin over it and let stand until softened, about 5 minutes. Microwave for a minute or so and mix well until the gelatin has dissolved.

Meanwhile, in a saucepan over medium heat, bring the remaining cream, mascarpone cheese, sugar and salt just to a boil. Remove the pan from the heat, add the chocolate and whisk until smooth.

Add the gelatin mixture to the chocolate mixture and mix well. Divide the mixture evenly among the ramekins and let cool to room temperature.

Cover the panna cotta loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate until set and thoroughly chilled, at least 3 hours or up to 1 day.

To serve, dip the ramekins one at a time into a bowl of hot water for about 20-30 seconds to loosen the custard, and then run a knife around the edges and invert onto a chilled serving plate. Serve the panna cotta with the strawberry sauce spooned over the top. Garnish with toasted walnuts. Serves 4.

For the strawberry sauce:
Ingredients:
8-10 strawberries
1 Tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp sugar

Method:
Add all the ingredients to a saucepan, warm on low-medium heat till the sugar melts and the strawberries get mushy. Cool and blend well to get a sauce-like consistency. Strain if you must.

Serve over chocolate panna cotta.

Balsamic Strawberries with Whipped Mascarpone Cheese

I stumbled across this recipe while I was looking for something simple to do with the strawberries that had just been purchased. I made this last night and it was a huge hit.

Ingredients:
15-20 fresh strawberries, hulled and quartered
1 tsp (or more) of sugar

For the syrup:
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp fresh lemon juice

For whipping together:
2-3 Tbsp mascarpone cheese (at room temperature)
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence

Serves 2

Method:
In a bowl, gently toss the strawberries with the sugar. Let it stand for 15 minutes or so until the strawberries have released their juices.

Meanwhile, combine the balsamic vinegar, sugar and lemon juice in a small saucepan. Stir over medium heat until sugar dissolves and the vinegar is reduced to a syrup-like consistency (takes about 5 minutes). Cool.

Whip together the mascarpone cheese, sugar and vanilla essence.
Portion the strawberries with their juices, mixed with a bit of balsamic syrup into serving bowls. Top with the mascarpone mixture and drizzle with the remaining balsamic syrup.

Balsamic vinegar has a lovely sweet flavor with a hint of tartness. Reducing it only intensifies the goodness. The mascarpone, the strawberries and the balsamic vinegar go really well together to make a quick dessert that is absolutely heavenly.

Off this goes to Mike @ Mike’s Table for Strawberry Seduction.

Some other recipes using balsamic vinegar:
Chocolate Balsamic Truffles
Ravioli with Balsamic Brown Butter

Another quick dessert with mascarpone cheese:
Peach and Mascarpone Phyllo Cups

I decided to have some fun with the balsamic vinegar while putting this together.
I clicked a couple of pictures and decided to send this one over to Bee and Jai at Jugalbandi for Click: Metal.

A spoonful of balsamic vinegar

Peach and Mascarpone Phyllo Cups

I had some leftover phyllo sheets in my freezer from this recipe that I tried last month, so I thought I’d build a recipe around phyllo dough. Then, AFAM-Peach was announced by Mansi and so I thought of doing something with peaches. Then I saw one of Giada’s recipes on the Food Network and suddenly everything came together. I finally had a recipe with peaches, phyllo cups and a couple of other ingredients thrown in to make this lip-smacking dessert that can be whipped up in no time. To make it even simpler, you could buy pre-made phyllo shells from the freezer section of your grocery store.

The original recipe can be found here. This is my version after a couple of modifications and substitutions.

I had made these last week and really, this does not even require a recipe. It’s just mixing things in the proportions you would like them in. Since this was going to be sent for AFAM-Peach, I decided I liked peaches and made sure I added more of them!. ;-)

Ingredients:
3 sheets phyllo dough

Mascarpone cheese

Sliced peaches (I used canned, drained peaches)

Raspberry yogurt

Toasted walnuts (toasted in the oven for a couple of minutes at 350 degree F)

Method:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Layer the phyllo sheets one on top of the other. Cut out 12 rounds (I used a knife and a katori) and press them into the mini muffin pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 5-7 minutes until crisp. Remove from the oven and let it cool.

Meanwhile, mix some mascarpone cheese and some raspberry yogurt in a bowl. Add the sliced peaches and mix gently.

Spoon the mixture into the phyllo cups and top with toasted walnuts and serve immediately.

While the phyllo cups are a nice addition and add a nice “crunch” to the dessert, I have also eaten it without the cups, and it’s just as delicious if not more.

Notes:
*Make sure you fill your phyllo cup with the dessert only when you are ready to eat it because the cups do tend to get soggy pretty quickly once filled.
*Once prepared, the leftover cups can be stored in an airtight container for almost a week.
*Though there is no real substitute for Mascarpone cheese, you could probably use a mixture of cream cheese and sour cream.