Panna Cotta

This Almond Milk Panna Cotta Recipe is an easy and delicious vegetarian dessert that’s perfect to end a beautiful evening! 

This Almond Milk Panna Cotta is easy to make and is equally delicious. A tasteful vegetarian dessert that’s serve fresh and cold. 

With only four ingredients, it pairs well with various fruit coulis’ for an enhanced flavor combination. Exotic fruits such as Mango, papaya, or dragon fruit, will take this dessert to the top. 

Italian cuisine has a wide range of delicious dishes, snacks, and delicacies. One of them is the Panna Cotta. The Panna cotta is a dessert and it is an Italian term for cooked cream.

A dessert that was once the rave of hotels and restaurants in Italy is now a delicacy enjoyed around the globe by many people. 

From the translation of the name, one can easily assume the content or constituents of this dessert. It features gelatin-sweetened and thickened cream.

While this dessert is usually served in restaurants and hotels, you can also make them at home and enjoy it with your friends and family.

What is Panna Cotta?

At the very basic, Panna Cotta is a pudding or chilled dessert. Its major components are cream and gelatin that is used to thicken the cream. However, as simple as it sounds, the taste is very exciting and delicious.

It is creamy and also manages to be soft on the tongue. It has no lumps or aftertaste; it simply melts into your mouth.

You can enjoy the dessert more by using fruit garnishes or sweet sauces. Also, you can add some crunch in form of a crumble. At the end of the day, what these garnishes do is improve the depth of taste of the dessert.

Panna Cotta found its way into Italian cookbooks in the 1960s. however, there are strong indications that the dessert was in existence before the 1960s. 

It was reported that a Hungarian woman was the first person to make this dish in the early 1900s. There are also other sources that state that the first panna cotta was made in the Northern Italian region of Piedmont.

In what seems like an endorsement of this source, Panna Cotta was included in Piedmont’s list of traditional foods in 2001. 

The ingredients used to make Panna Cotta at the time are still in use to date. They include gelation, milk, sugar, marsala, rum, and cream. Some people also used caramel at the time.

It was not until the 1990s that this dessert found its way and became popular in the United States. And from the US, it found its way to other parts of the world where it has now become a popular dessert option in many restaurants.

Ingredients

Almond Milk: Sure, you can use any milk, but the almond milk brings this dish to the next level. We recommend that you use unsweetened almond milk as it will allow you to have more control over the sweetness of the recipe.

Almond milk is the most important ingredient and the major difference between this Panna Cotta type and the normal panna cotta. 

Almond milk is a perfect substitute for people who are looking for dairy-free options. While you can buy get stores, it is also easy to make the milk at home. 

All you need is water and almonds. It is also important to state that if you are very particular about the dairy-free features of the almond milk, it pays to use the homemade option, rather than the store-bought option. 

This is because store-bought almond milk contains carrageenan which is an additive.

This additive stabilizes and thickens food, but it also causes inflammation and gastrointestinal issues. If you have a sensitive digestive tract or autoimmune condition, it is best if you stick to homemade almond milk.  

Making the almond milk at home is not difficult at all. All you have to do is blend the almond with water until it is broken down.

You then have to strain out the milk from the pulp, and the resulting creamy milk is what you are looking for. To strain out the milk, you should use a nut bag.

Gelatin: Other ingredients for making the panna cotta with almond milk include gelatin, which should be powdered and unflavored, heavy lactose-free cream, and granulated sugar.

You can also get almond extract to intensify the almond flavor.

Almond Milk Creamer: In addition to adding the almond, you’ll also need the almond milk creamer which will infuse flavor into the dessert while keeping it rich.  

Pro Tips

• Ensure that the gelatin dissolves completely. Whether you are getting the granulated form or sheet form of gelatin, ensure that it is unflavored and also dissolves completely before adding it to the cream mixture. The proper dissolution of the gelatin ensures that you don’t have lumps when you are done.
• Avoid fruits with high bromelain content. Fruits are some of the garnishes you can use with your panna cotta. However, you cannot use all fruits for the dessert and this is because of the reaction between bromelain content and gelatin in the panna cotta. Bromelain is an enzyme and when it reacts with gelatin which is a protein, it breaks it down. This affects the constituency of the panna cotta. Fruits that have high bromelain content include kiwi and pineapple.
• Watch the ratio of fat to gelatin in the base. Gelatin is an important ingredient in this dish and this is why you need to be careful with the way it mixes and interacts with other dishes. The ratio of the fat content in your ingredients to that of gelatin matters a lot in ensuring that the panna cotta sets well. However, this should not scare you away from trying out different creamy ingredients for your panna cotta. You only need to remember that the lower the fat content, the more gelatin content that you will require.
• You should simmer and not boil the cream and sugar base of the panna cotta. You should keep the temperature low and slow, and this is the only way to ensure that the cream doesn’t separate from the mixture.
• Also, do not allow your gelatin to boil. Once it boils, it will not thicken and this means that the panna cotta will not set properly.
• Remember to spray your molds if you are planning to use molds for presentation. This is because it makes the demolding process very easy.  

How To Store

The refrigerator is the first-choice option for storing the panna cotta. Either before serving or leftovers after serving, the panna cotta can start fresh for up to 12 days in the fridge. All you need to do is wrap it tightly and keep it from other savory odors.

Coulis Recipes To Pair With Your Panna Cotta

Your Panna Cotta with almond milk would not be complete without a delicious sauce. We recommend trying one of the following sauces listed below.

Strawberry coulis

Blackberry Coulis

Mango Coulis

Kiwi coulis

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