Panna cotta a wobble to please.

Having just eaten a tasty, but somewhat firm panna cotta from a Mary Berry recipe I fell upon an article from The Guardian's series 'how to make the perfect....'
This is definitely on my to try list.
I might even try MB again but with 50% less gelatine although I had better test it out without visitors!

"My biggest challenge, once I've decided to use a 2:1 ratio of double cream to milk and buttermilk in order to give a rich, but not sickly flavour, is judging the set. It's a delicate balance: too much gelatine and the panna cotta will be unpleasantly chewy, too little, and you've got yourself a sauce. Eventually, after a fair few failures, I achieve that perfect wobble.

Flavourings

The Oxford Companion to Food's entry on panna cotta stresses that, "if a flavouring is used, it should be delicate." Nigel Slater, Denis Cotter and Giorgio Locatelli all choose rose water and vanilla seeds – I like the subtle summery hint of flowers, but, in defiance of modern mores, I'm not so keen on the vanilla, which makes it taste, to my mind, like custard.

Each to their own though – panna cotta is an amenable dessert which will work with anything from caramel to saffron, although a good tip from Locatelli is not to add alcohol-based flavourings, such as rosewater, until the mixture has cooled slightly, or the flavour will evaporate. I prefer to leave my panna cotta plain, and serve it with fresh fruit (late summer berries are a brilliant choice) as a sharp contrast.

Perfect panna cotta


Felicity's perfect panna cotta. Photograph: Felicity Cloake for the Guardian
Panna cotta is such a simple dish that both the flavour and the texture have to be spot on – there really is nowhere for the cook to hide with this one. Once you've cracked it, though, it's the perfect make-ahead stuff for those (few) occasions when Angel Delight just won't cut the mustard.

Serves 4

2 x 2g leaves gelatine
300ml double cream
115g caster sugar
100ml full-fat milk
50ml buttermilk
Vegetable oil, to grease

1. Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water. Pour the cream into a pan, add the sugar and heat gently, stirring, until the sugar has dissolved. Bring just to a simmer, and then take off the heat.

2. Squeeze out the gelatine and then stir it into the warm cream mixture to dissolve. Pour through a sieve into a clean bowl and stir in the milk and buttermilk. Taste for sweetness and add more sugar if necessary.

3. Grease the inside of 4 espresso cups or small ramekins and divide the mixture between them. Cool and then refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight.

4. To turn out, put the dishes briefly in boiling water and then invert on to plates. Serve with berries or fruit compote.

Panna cotta – one of the few truly great Italian desserts. What flavourings do you add to yours (any top tips for savoury versions?) and what do you like to eat them with? And will anyone come out in support of the great British blancmange?"

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Lemon Drizzle v.3

Delia Smith's cakes this time.

Ingredients

175g self-raising flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

175g spreadable butter

175g golden caster sugar

3 large eggs

grated zest of 3 large lemons

juice of large lemon

40g poppy seeds

For the syrup

juice of 3 large lemons

grated zest of 1 large lemon

50g golden icing sugar, sifted

100g golden granulated sugar

To finish:

1 rounded teaspoon golden granulated sugar mixed with 1 rounded teaspoon poppy seeds

1 rounded teaspoon poppy seeds

Pre-heat the oven to 170°C, gas mark 3

A 20cm loose-based round cake tin, greased and base lined

All in one method:

Start off by sifting the flour and baking powder into a roomy mixing bowl, holding
the sieve quite high to give the flour a good airing as it goes down. Then add the butter, sugar, eggs, lemon zest and juice and finally the poppy seeds.

Now, using an electric hand whisk, mix to a smooth creamy consistency for about one minute.

Spoon the mixture into the tin, levelling it with the back of the spoon, and bake near the centre of the oven for 40 minutes or until the centre feels springy.

When the cake is ready, remove the tin from the oven to a board, then straight away
mix together the syrup ingredients. 

Next stab the cake all over with a skewer and spoon the syrup evenly over the hot cake, then finally sprinkle with the sugar and poppy seed mixture.

After that the cake needs to cool in its tin before it can be removed and stored in an airtight container.

Note: this is equally good made without the poppy seeds if you prefer.

Low Fat Banana Muffins

Haven't tried these yet, so recipe just for reference. Will update or remove depending on results.

I make these banana muffins all the time and the kids love them. I had no idea they were only around 80 calories per muffin.

I fill 24 muffin compartments 2/3rds of the way with the mix. You don't have to use the spices I've added to this recipe. The original recipe doesn't have any spices in it but I love it with cinnamon and nutmeg and sometimes I add pumpkin spice. You can also substitute the eggs with egg beaters if thats your thing and the sugar you can substitute with splenda. My MIL is diabetic and would substitute 1/2 a cup of splenda for 1 cup of sugar since splenda is twice as sweet as sugar. That would also bring your calorie count down. But at only 80 calories per muffin who cares about a couple more calories. You can add a cup of raw oats and a cup of raisins as well. I usually double the recipe and make half without and the other half with the raisins and oats. Kids don't care for the oats or raisins but hubby and I do. But that does increase your calorie count. So run it through the recipe builder to get an accurate count if you add the raisins and oats.

Number of servings 24

Ingredients Calories Carbs Fat Protein
Egg - Large, Grade A, Raw, 2 egg 140 0 8 12
Sugars - Granulated (sucrose), 1 cup 774 200 0 0
Water - Bottled or Tap, 2.6 fl. oz. 0 0 0 0
Bananas - Raw, 3 medium (7" to 7-7/8" long) 315 81 1 4
I Can't Believe It's Not Butter - Light, 2 Tbsp (14g) 90 0 10 0
All-Purpose Flour (32 oz), 1 1/3 cup (30g) 572 114 0 16
Baking Powder, 0.25 tsp 2 1 0 0
Baking soda, 0.5 tsp 0 0 0 0
Spices - Cinnamon, ground, 1 tsp 6 2 0 0
Spices - Nutmeg, ground, 1 tsp 12 1 1 0
Salt - Table , 0.5 teaspoon 0 0 0 0

Total calories: 1911
Calories Per Serving: 80
Edited by fit4lifeUcan2 On October 12, 2012 2:13 PM


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Location:From myfitness pal.com