The White Ramekins

food & photography

Welcoming Year 2013 With Strawberry Jelly And Vanilla Bean Panna Cotta Trifles

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The year that just passed by took me through a wonderful journey. It was an year when a lot happened. It was an year, when I moved from Blogger to WordPress and started writing about my food on a more regular basis.

TheWhiteRamekins

I came across so many wonderful food blogs which not only gave me the inspiration and motivation to try new and challenging recipes each and every passing day, but also taught me the insights of the food photography. It challenged me differently each and every time and changed my perception towards a photograph.

Strawberry Jelly With Vanilla Bean Panna Cotta

Looking back at the day I started writing about food 2 years ago, I have come a long way in terms of learning and the experience. And I thank you all my lovely readers for that.

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It was an year, when this blog gave me an opportunity to join this wonderful food blogger community, Blogger’s Table – A chatty, vivacious bunch of very talented people, I know.  The group gave me a chance to learn more about food reviews. An d it was a great experience learning this first hand.

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There had been so many things which I wanted to do before the year ended. But I could do only few of them as the time permitted. That leaves me with those things to be taken up, new recipes to be tried up in the year 2013. And I look towards this year in more hope and more aspiration.

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Ushering in the new year, I prepared these beautiful looking strawberry jelly and vanilla bean panna cotta trifles, which are basically inspired from Donna Hay’s Strawberry and Vanilla Macaroon Trifles. Such stunning looking these mini desserts were. I took them to my friend’s for the new year party and they were really a rage. A total hit both among the adults and the kids.

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Ingredients

Strawberry Jelly

2½ teaspoons unflavored gelatin powder
750 ml cranberry juice {I used Tropicana}
110 gm sugar
500 gm strawberries, halved

Panna Cotta

2 tbsp cold water
2 tsp unflavored powdered gelatin
1 cup low fat cream
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 vanilla bean split
2 cup plain whole milk hung yogurt

Instructions

  1. For the jelly, place 1/2 cup cranberry juice and the gelatin powder in a bowl and let stand for 5 minutes until gelatin gets dissolved.
  2. Meanwhile heat rest of the cranberry juice with sugar over medium heat until sugar is dissolved.
  3. Bring to a boil and cook for 1 minute. Take that off from heat and mix in the gelatin and set aside for 20 minutes to cool.
  4. Divide the cut strawberries into six trifle glasses or any ramekins of your choice.
  5. Pour in the cranberry mix into the glasses leaving 3/4th of the space. Let stand them in the fridge to set for at least 3 hours.
  6. For the panna cotta, sprinkle the gelatin over water in a bowl and let stand for 5 minutes until gelatin is dissolved.
  7. Meanwhile, heat the cream with sugar and split vanilla bean in a saucepan over medium heat until the cream starts to boil.
  8. Remove from heat and whisk in the gelatin.
  9. Whisk in the yogurt and let it cool completely, taking care that it doesn’t start to set.
  10. Take out the jelly ramekins from the fridge and pour in the cooled cream over the jelly {cream should be completely cooled down and the jelly should be chilled, otherwise it may sink into the strawberry jelly}.
  11. Let them stand back into the fridge for another 2 hours. Once done, top them with some sliced strawberries and a sprig of mint.

Happy New Year !!!

Ginger Panna Cotta With Pomegranate and Pear

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Last weekend was quite busy and I didn’t get enough time to spend on something elaborate. So I thought to put together some low fat cream with some hung curd to make these luscious and velvety smooth panna cotta.

Instead of settling down for the regular vanilla bean flavor, I tried to be a bit experimental and went ahead with infusing my panna cotta with the warm and earthy flavored ginger. The flavor of ginger did wonders to the panna cotta and gave them a whole new identity.

That’s the good thing about panna cotta. You can add flavors of your choice. Let your imagination as loose as you can, yet you will never go wrong, you bet.

Add espresso, chocolate shavings, fruits, coulis inside, above , beneath, wherever and whichever way you want. I paired them my ginger panna cotta with some leftover pear {which were ripe enough to be caramelized} and some pomegranate.

Ingredients

Panna Cotta

2 tbsp cold water
2 tsp unflavored powdered gelatin
1 cup low fat cream
1/3 cup sugar
1 inch stem ginger
2 cup plain whole milk hung yogurt

Caramelized Pears

2 Pears, chored, pealed and diced
2 tbsp light brown sugar
1 tbsp unsalted butter

Pomegranate seeds

Instructions

For panna cotta:

  1. In a bowl, sprinkle the gelatin over cold water and let it sit for 5 minutes.
  2. In a heavy bottom saucepan, mix cream with shredded ginger and sugar. Heat the cream mixture until it starts to boil.
  3. Remove from heat and add the gelatin and whisk until dissolved.
  4. Whisk in the yogurt and pour the mix into glasses or ramekins. Let stand in fridge for at least 4 hours.
  5. While serving, top them with pomegranate seeds or caramelized pears.

For caramelized pears:

  1. Heat the butter and sugar in a saucepan until starts sizzling.
  2. Add the chopped pears and saute them until they start to become translucent. Remove from heat and chill them in fridge.

Vanilla Bean Panna Cotta With Mango Coulis

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I just get thrilled about having a dessert which has got some fruits in it. Fruits give a whole new life to a dessert, by their mere freshness. And if it has to be the King of all the fruits, it just leaves you wanting more of it. Yes I am talking about Mangoes, the gorgeous golden and super sweet flesh of mangoes added to a dessert.

Summer is upon us now in it’s full swing. You could see them everywhere, with carts loaded with them and hawkers selling them by the roadside. And I had been looking out for a dessert recipe which calls for Mangoes, because I didn’t want to miss out on this special seasonal fruit, which lasts here for around four months only.

And then I came across this wonderful Panna Cotta recipe by David Lebovitz.  God…why I hadn’t stumbled upon this earlier??? Panna Cotta is basically set cream, which gets it’s body from gelatin. And I tell you that the texture of it is so luscious and smooth that resisting something like this is almost next to impossible.

David’s recipe calls for double cream. But I took the liberty on adapting it minimally by cutting down the calories by substituting half of the double cream by low fat cream and the rest half by hung yogurt {to lessen the whey}. And the result was still so creamy. I have saved the original recipe for some future special moment.

I paired my Panna Cotta with Mango coulis, which I had frozen in the serving glasses for two hours, so that the weight of Panna Cotta doesn’t make it sag into the fruit puree below it. This is the kind of dessert which you can prepare for a dinner party well in advance, stock them up in refrigerator, and I am sure your life becomes all sorted out.

Recipe adapted minimally from David Lebovitz

Ingredients

Panna Cotta:

250 ml low fat cream {i used 25 % fat}
250 ml hung curd {hung for 24 hours in refrigerator}
50 gm cane sugar
1 vanilla bean pod or 2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp gelatin powder
3 tbsp cold water

Mango Coulis:
flesh of 3 ripened mangoes
sugar adjusted to the sweetness of mangoes
1/2 cup water

Instructions

  1. For the coulis, Blend the mangoes and water in a liquidizer. You may skip the sugar, if mangoes are enough sweet.
  2. Divide the fruit among for glasses/ramekins equally and freeze them up for 2 hours.
  3. Mix cream, yogurt and sugar well in a saucepan.
  4. Scrape the seeds from vanilla bean and add to the cream mixture.
  5. Heat the cream mixture till the sugar gets dissolved, taking care not to boil the cream.
  6. In a separate bowl, sprinkle the gelatin powder over cold water and let it stand it for 5-10 minutes.
  7. Pour the warm cream mixture over gelatin and mix. Let it cool for some time.
  8. Pour the Panna Cotta mixture over the frozen fruits and let them stand in refrigerator for at least 2 hours.
  9. When serving, top them up with fresh mango cubes/nuts/mint leaves and enjoy them chilled.