Cream of desserts – 

cooked cream

Cooking cream or milk into a custard or a firm junket-like pudding has to be one of the world’s oldest desserts. We explored a consensus of ‘panna cotta’ recipes set with gelatine to provide a basic recipe for you to add your own flavours. To provide you with inspiration we present three delicious recipes of our own.
 
Panna cotta or ‘cooked cream’ from Northern Italy is a collaboration of cream, sugar and gelatine (or gelatin US) that has rivaled ‘burnt cream’ (crème brulee) on restaurant dessert menus in recent years.

Cooked cream recipes are common in any country with an intense diary industry, including New Zealand. Do you remember Blancmange? Also made of cream and sugar thickened with gelatine (or cornstarch)?   

Finding a recipe consensus

Typically, we found panna cotta recipes around the world varied in terms of ingredient quantities and, to a lesser degree, methodology.

The biggest discrepancy was found with the dilution of the basic ingredient (cream) with milk and other dairy products (especially low fat products). The original Italian recipes would have used fresh, unpasteurized cows cream straight off the farm. The dessert would be typically drizzled with olive oil and sprinkle with a little sea salt.

The quantity of sugar also varied - from between 50 grams for around 500 mls of cream/milk mixture to a sickly 175 grams. Kiwi recipes, in our opinion, tend to over-do the ‘sweet’ and we have cut the amount of sugar in half, which allows the natural flavouring agents you use in your cream more room to say ‘hello’ on your taste buds and leaves any sweetness intensity for the complementary sauces and garnishes. 

Setting agent

This is the crucial and most difficult part of setting the ‘shape’ of your pudding. Gelatine, the setting agent, comes in two forms – granules/powder and gelatine sheets/leaves. Sheets are not readily available outside specialist shops in New Zealand and different brands vary in strength. They are, however, easier to work with than powder and the reason commercial kitchens use them. Gelatine powder also varies as a retail product and has to be completely dissolved into the mixture to avoid clumping and separation – where you end up with a layer of gel on top of your panna cotta. Gelatine is an animal product. Agar-agar is another setting agent with similar properties made from seaweed. 

Blooming your gelatine

This dessert should be soft textured and creamy - not too rubbery. Too little gelatine and the dessert won't contain its shape; too much and it is too firm. Both powdered and sheet gelatine mediums have to be ‘started’ in liquid before being added to the heated cream and sugar (you can use some of the same liquid, about 60 ml, used in the cream and sugar recipe). The powder has to be sprinkled evenly over the top of warm liquid and left to ‘bloom” (absorb moisture) for at least five minutes – don’t mix it or it will clump. The gelatine sheets are immersed in cold water to re-hydrate – absorb the liquid and soften. Our sheet product had to be watched very carefully otherwise it dissolved completely and turned into glue. When the sheet is soft get it out of the water.

Your gelatine medium is then stirred into the cooked cream and sugar OFF the heat (boiling destroys gelatine's ability to set), and you have to mix it THOROUGHLY. 

Our basic recipe – creamy and soft textured 

For every 300 ml of heavy cream:
200 ml full milk (or coconut milk, or some other flavoured liquid)
50 grams castor sugar (or no more than 12 grams per 100 ml of liquid)
Three teaspoons (15 ml) gelatine powder or one sheet of gelatine
1 vanilla pod

Adjust quantities to the number of serves. The above quantity makes six servings using a small mold.
     
Flavourings

Like cheesecake, panna cotta is the sort of dairy dessert that just begs for imaginative flavour combinations and garnishes that are only limited by your imagination. There are some fruit flavours in their natural state that you can’t use without curdling the cream or upset the gelatine setting agent – such as kiwi and pineapple. 

Basic and popular flavours are vanilla pods (or essence) and citrus zests. On the wild side - basil leaves and cinnamon sticks.  If you use a vanilla pod – you need to strain the cooked mixture before letting it cool and pouring it into your molds. 

If you use vanilla essence or any other liquid essence – don’t put it into the cooking cream and sugar - mix it into the finished mixture just before it is poured into your molds.

Basic cooking

Put aside 60 ml of the milk (at a warm temperature) and sprinkle on your gelatine powder to let it ‘bloom’. If using a sheet, soften in a bowl of cold water.

The cream and sugar are put into a sauce pan with your flavourings (such a vanilla pod and its scraped seeds). Gently bring to a simmer and stir constantly to dissolve the sugar. Some recipes say keep on boiling and reduce, others are adamant that you don’t boil and get the custard off the heat after it reached simmering point. We opt for the ‘get it off the heat once it reaches boiling point’. 

When off the heat, stir the gelatine into the custard until completely dissolved. Gelatine takes longer to dissolve when used with cream so mix thoroughly.

Into the mold

Mixtures with butter milk, yoghurt or flavoured with vanilla pods need to be strained to get out the lumps, bumps and solids.  

Your individual servings shouldn’t be too big as this is a rich dessert, but with small molds (say 80 ml) the quantity of our basic recipes will make six servings.

In Europe it is not uncommon to use a large mold to set one large dessert which is cut into individual portion for serving. You can also serve the mixture in a clear wine glass.

Always lightly coat your mold with a neutral oil such as canola and the more flexible the mold, the easier it is to get the set mixture out onto a plate (by massaging the sides and getting air between the wall and the mixture). We have used 80 ml cardboard espresso cups from our friendly coffee shop. 

Pour the mixture after it has reached room temperature (mix it one more time) into your molds, cover with cling film and refrigerate for at least 3 - 4 hours.

Like any gelatin-based recipe, the process of un-molding can get your tea towel in a twist very quickly. They have a mind of their own in terms of plopping out easily or not and tricks to get a sticky one out include – massaging the sides (if it is flexible); running the blade of a small knife around the sides; dipping into warm water for a few seconds; and the wrist flick. One, or a combination, of these methods will get you there, and some of them pop out on their own.  

Recipe presentations using basic recipe

Vanilla panna cotta with nashi pears poached in red wine and balsamic glaze

1 cup red wine
1 cup balsamic vinegar
½ cup 125 grams brown sugar
2 nashi pears peeled, cored and quartered
Poach pear quarters in liquid ingredients in a saucepan until cooked. Remove quarters and further reduce the syrup until thick
 

Vanilla panna cotta with mini pears poached in muscat wine

250 ml of muscat or sweet dessert wine
50 grams brown sugar
1 star anise
Zest 1 lemon
1 cinnamon stick
Put peeled baby pears into a saucepan with ingredients and cook until pears are tender – remove and reduce syrup until thick

Orange zest panna cotta with blood orange and cognac sauce

2 blood oranges
1 plain orange

1 tbsp grated grind for panna cotta mix

Zest syrup
200 ml orange juice
125 grams castor sugar

Sauce
300 ml orange juice
50 grams sugar
60 ml cognac (or brandy)
2 teaspoon arrowroot

Grate one blood orange and one plain orange (about 1 tablespoon of peel) and place into the cream and sugar mix when you make your panna cotta

Make long zests out of the other blood orange. Place 200 ml orange juice and 125 grams of castor sugar into a saucepan and reduce over low heat until sugar is dissolved. Add zests and reduce until caramelized and sticky. Garnish top of the panna cotta with the zests when cold
The sauce is made by combining 300 ml of orange juice, 50 grams castor sugar, 60 ml cognac (or brandy), and 2 teaspoons (10 ml) of arrowroot. Heat ingredients in a saucepan until thick Serve cold with cut orange flesh into rounds. 

Autumn 2010

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