Panna Cotta With Strawberry Puree

Yesterday was Jana Faith's 7th birthday.

This year I didn't bake her any cake but of course I made her something ! We had Panna Cotta as her 'birthday cake' this year. Why Panna Cotta ? In fact, there's a story to it....

My girls grew up with diary cream so obviously they like cream, especially when whipped. We had a dinner at Al-fresco last weekend to celebrate JF's birthday. Since there's a band there so I got them to sing her a birthday song & I thoght it would be nice to have a dessert to go along with it. Browsing through the dessert menu, I saw Panna Cotta with raspberry crisps & that seemed interesting. When the dessrt arrived, served in a huge glass, with a thin pathetic layer of raspberry jelly & crumbed pieces of what seemed to me butter cookies. The Panna Cotta tasted like a thick milky agar agar, not like a creamy dessert. We pushed it around among the four of us & when we left there's still like almost half left. The kids commented that the Panna Cotta was awful !

So I thought I could make Panna Cotta while the girls were still sleeping yesterday morning & be ready for lunch.

Few months back, I saw on Jenny's blog about her Panna Cotta, I was so attracted to it, so pretty served in a tall glass. This is the link to the original recipe .




I made some changes to the original recipe & this is my version :

Serves 4

1 cup (250ml) strawberry puree
2 tablespoon (30g) water
8g powdered gelatin
1 vanilla bean
2 cup (500 ml) heavy cream
1/4 cup (50gr) sugar


Fill 4 champagne flutes with strawberry puree up to 1/4 height, let freeze till firm.

Place the water in a small bowl and sprinkle the gelatin over it. Let it bloom while you prepare the cream. On a flat surface, cut the vanilla bean in half lengthwise without cutting all the way through. With a pairing knife, scrape the seeds from the pods. Set aside.
In a medium saucepan, heat the heavy cream with the sugar and vanilla bean seeds until the cream is just about to boil, stirring occasionally to make sure the sugar dissolves completely. Remove from the heat and stir in the gelatin until it is completely melted. Let cool for about 10 minutes. Let cool to room temperature. You can speed up the process by placing your saucepan over a bowl filled with ice but keep and eye on it as it will thicken faster. Once the cream is cooled, slowly pour it over the frozen fruit till about half full. When it almost set, pour in another layer of strawberry puree, let freeze till firm & pour the remaining cream on top of the puree. Let chill till firm before serving, at least 2 hours. Garnish with strawberry before serving.