Espresso Panna Cotta

I am really very pleased with this recipe.

I love a coffee flavoured dessert. When I was a child my brother hated the coffee flavoured chocolates in a mixed box. To ensure that he got all the orange cups and never ended up with the coffee creams he used his persuasive skills to convince me that coffee flavoured sweets were my favourites.

It appears that it worked as I went on to love all coffee flavoured desserts and chocolates and will even actively seek out coffee Revels. Crazy huh?

I researched many different ways of making this but I came up with this method as I wanted to use leaf gelatine and pure double cream, not a mix of dairy products.

I also wanted a recipe that used freshly brewed espresso for the cream and also for a coffee syrup to pour over it. I didn’t want to use instant espresso, like most recipes suggest, so I had to get the liquid levels just right to get that perfect panna cotta wobble.

Too many more of these and I’m going to have the panna cotta wobble.

The plan was that the espresso syrup would add an extra bitter-sweet coffee flavour and a crème caramel appearance.

I think it worked out rather well.

A doddle to make and rich with coffee flavour.

For the panna cotta

• 2 leaves of gelatine – 2g each
• 360ml cream
• 100g caster sugar – use vanilla sugar or just add 1/2 a vanilla pod
• 1 x 50ml espresso (this is 2 servings from our Lavazza machine)

I use caster sugar flavoured with vanilla but alternatively add half a vanilla pod in with the seeds scraped in to the cream too.

For the espresso syrup* (Optional)

• 50 ml espresso
• 50g caster sugar

*You can make double this amount if you are a caffeine addict! It would be great on ice cream.

To make the panna cotta

1. Put the gelatine in a bowl of cold water to soak.
2. Take 7 or 8 espresso cups (or 4-5 small dariole moulds) and rub the insides with a little oil.
3. In a heavy, non stick pan gently heat the cream and sugar whilst stirring.
4. Pour in the 50 ml of strong espresso.
5. Just after the creamy mixture comes to a simmer and bubbles round the edge take it off the heat.
6. Squeeze the excess water from the gelatine and stir it into the cream.
7. Pour the mix through a sieve into a jug, then pour into espresso cups. Allow to set in the fridge for 4 or more hours
8. You can eat it from the cups or dip them briefly into hot water, slide a sharp knife around the edge and tip onto a plate.
9. Pour the coffee syrup over the puddings and serve.

To make the syrup

Stir together an espresso cup of coffee and 50g of sugar.

Simmer for a few minutes until it starts to look a little syrupy, not for too long though or it will become bitter. Pour it into a tiny jug and it will thicken more as it cools.