Plain Pannacotta with Orange sauce and Strawberry Jam

A most wonderful dessert that I ever had was Pannacotta. Never in my life did I ever have this exotic dessert. No wonder, my sweet tooth will never stop me from trying out desserts from Indian to International. To be upfront, I never ever prepared this dessert nor tasted in my life. As a part of challenge in SFC-Sweet Fantasy Club this month we were given Pannacotta as a fusion dessert and Malpua as Indian sweet. I'm happy to be a part of this group and to get a chance to try these beautiful desserts. I enjoyed the very authentic Indian sweetmeat malpua which I posted yesterday, to talk about Pannacotta, I was worried and became little edgy, hence tried to prepare as less as possible, still I ended up with 3 cups filled half with this fantabulous lip smacking dessert. I'm happy for that now as my kid just gobbled the entire one cup and was asking for more. I was scared to offer her more though. I too enjoyed it alot, so not to complain much about her. Pannacotta is an Italian Dessert believed to have originated in the Northern Italian region of Piedmont, although it is known worldwide. Pannacotta which literally means 'Cooked Cream'. In earlier days this dessert used to prepared by cooking cream along with fish bones which contain collagen that act as gelatin to help set the cream when cooled to room temperature. But nowadays lots of ways are found to make it vegetarian with the use of agar agar, a sea weed(vegetarian Gelatin it can be called). Even vegan Pannacotta can be prepared with the use of soy milk/ almond milk/ coconut milk instead of regular milk and cream. So here I share without any delay the recipe of Vegetarian version of Pannacotta.

Serves 3

Ingredients:
Cream with 30% fat- 1 cup (250ml)
Milk-1 cup(250ml)
Sugar-1/2 cup+2 tbsp.
Vanilla essence-1 tsp.
Orange juice-1/2 cup
Agar agar-10gms+5gms.
Strawberry Jam to garnish- 1-2 tsp.

Recipe:

1. In a pan add cream.
2. To that add 1 cup milk.
3. Add 1/2 cup sugar, vanilla essence and mix well on a low flame till the sugar dissolves and becomes warm.
4. Now add 10gms agar agar powder and mix well.Cook for around 2 minutes on a low flame till the entire contents are dissolved fully and no solid particles remain.
5. As shown in the pic place a serving glass on top of a cup to stay well slanted or use any other technique that strikes your brain. Before to that just wash your serving glass clean and also make it moist from inside by just washing the inside with cold water once if you want to serve the pannacotta in plate, as that way it acts as grease and helps to demould easily.
6. Now pour in slowly the cooked mixture to the glasses and allow them to cool. Once cooled, cover the top with a cling wrap and Transfer them to refrigerator.
7. After 4-5 hours of cooling it will be well set. As the dessert takes time and stays well after 2-3 days even, it would be ideal to prepare for your guests a day ahead of time.
8. Now prepare the orange sauce by squeezing out juice from one orange(I preferred this) or store brought juice.To that add 2 tbsp. sugar and cook on a low to medium flame adding agar agar till both sugar and 5gms agar agar dissolve completely. Cool the sauce and then pour it over the set pannacotta and chill for an hour or two. Finally add a small hint of strawberry jam on top to garnish and enjoy this mouthwatering delicious Tangy Sweet Pannacotta

Notes:

1. Always check for the type of agar agar you get. It depends from brand to brand. For my recipe that involved 500ml of the mixture of cream and milk, I used 10gms of the Agar agar as mentioned in the sachet of Agar Agar that I had. Sometime you may need only 5 gms also. Just have a look for the amount to be used for 500 ml of mixture , it would be mentioned there.
2. Topping choices are many, you can imaging any. It would go well with this plain Vanilla Pannacotta. I used what I had and felt is ideal. 

Enjoy the dish! n don't forget Eat and Eat little MORE.. :)