Sunday Dessert

I have this book by Mary Berry called Traditional Puddings and Desserts. With a name like Mary 'Berry' I suppose it's only natural that she's one of the most celebrated food writers in UK.

It’s a great little book with about 75 recipes, some having variations. It also explains some key techniques with pictures like how to make a meringue, how to make marbled fillings, pastry-making and piping techniques among others. It’s quite a helpful book for beginners. The best part about the book is that the ingredients used are fairly easily available in India. There are maybe a couple recipes that will be difficult to make, all other can be made with relative ease.

For the past month or so I have been reading through the book and I finally settled on the pannacotta as the first recipe I would try from the book. The recipe was originally a lemon pannacotta but since I had just made a lemon yoghurt cake, I thought I would change it to a chocolate-flavoured pannacotta.

I decided against adding actual melted chocolate because I wasn't sure if I would need to change the amount of gelatin in the recipe and by how much I would need to change it. I just added some cocoa powder. This worked well because it gave the pannacotta a mild chocolate flavour. A strong chocolate flavour would overpower the palate and make the pannacotta feel richer than it already was.

Got a little over-enthusiastic while sprinkling the cocoa powder for garnishing and made a royal mess

This what you'll need:

• 2 Tbsp Cold Water
• 2 tsp Powdered Gelatin
• 500 ml Half and half (I used Amul Fresh Cream)
• 75g Sugar
• 25g Cocoa Powder
• 1 tsp Vanilla Essence
• Custard Bowls, Ramekins or Small Teacups

 METHOD:

1. Measure the cold water into a container and sprinkle the gelatin over it. Keep it aside so it can sponge.
2. Pour the cream into a saucepan; add sugar and cocoa powder to it. Heat it, stirring continuously, until the sugar dissolves.
3. You must remove it off the heat before it boils. You will notice that the cream mixture rises a little (like it’s about to boil), that is when I took it off the stove.
4. Keep stirring it for about 4-5 minutes so it cools slightly and add the sponged gelatin and keep stirring till it dissolves and the mixture is smooth. You can test the smoothness of the cream by rubbing it between your thumb and forefinger. Add the vanilla essence and mix it in.
5. Pour into the serving dish of your choice and refrigerate for a minimum of 6 hours or preferably overnight.

You can serve these in the dish itself or you could de-mould them by running a sharp knife around the edges.

This recipe makes 6 medium sized servings or 8 mini servings. I would suggest mini servings since pannacottas are quite rich.

Pannacottas are extremely simple to make and it makes a great dessert at a dinner partyespecially because you can make it the previous day. The next recipe I want to experiment with is the Marbled Cheesecake. To that end, I went shopping today and bought strawberries. That recipe will be up in the next couple days... Just something to look forward to.