Vanilla Panna Cotta

 Sometimes I make things that I intend to blog about - but I forget to take pictures......

This is one of those examples where I made panna cotta for family meal night, spent a long time researching how to make it, and making some myself, then enjoying it with my family, and then I realised DAMN!!! I forgot to document the actual thing!!!! 

So I apologise for the lack of pictures in this post, but I felt this one was a recipe worth sharing, because it was so delicious and creamy, and I also like the end picture with the vanilla seeds and bits of blueberry compote (below)

I decided to make panna cotta after I had some from the Italian restaurant 'Con amici' in Denbigh, which is actually really lovely. I went there with my grandparents for a meal and was pleasantly surprised - I had caprese salad from starters, seared tuna for mains, followed by rum and honey panna cotta. The tuna was actually perfect, and we all really enjoyed out meal. The decor leaves a little to be desired, but the food quality more than made up for that :)

Also Scott brought me back these lovely vintage jelly moulds from London, so I thought the perfect thing to do would be to make panna cotta in them....

Vanilla Panna Cotta with blueberry compote:

(recipe adapted from waitrose online)

Ingredients:

Four leaves of gelatin

560ml double cream

200ml semi skimmed milk

180g caster sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla paste

Compote:

1 small punnet blueberries

1 desert spoon balsamic vinegar

1tablespoon water

2 table spoons caster sugar (or to your own tastes)

Soak the gelatin leaves in cold water for at least 4-5 minutes.

Place the cream, milk, sugar and vanilla seeds in a pan with a heavy base. Slowly bring to the boil over a medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar has dissolved. 

Remove from the heat then take the gelatin leaves one by one, squeeze out the excess water and stir into the cream mixture until dissolved.

Divide the panna cotta mixture between the jelly moulds . Cool and then chill in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours until set.

Add all your compote ingredients into a heavy based pan, and cook until almost all the blueberries have burst. Set aside and leave to cool until the panna cotta's are ready.

To serve, dip the moulds one at a time into hot water for 10 seconds, then turn out onto plates.

 Spoon over the compote and decorate with fresh raspberries.

So I do apologise about the missing pictures, but you will have to take my word on this one - Panna cotta's (especially vanilla) are wonderful.