Sunday, February 27, 2011

Florentines & Panna Cotta: Daring Bakers February 2011 Challenge

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.

After the prior month's outrageous baking challenge, I was happy to have some recipes that were a little bit more fool proof and low stress. At least, so I thought.

I had been wanting to make panna cotta for a while - for the prior month's challenge I had made a yogurt mousse using a vegetable-based gelatin, and I was excited to try this newly-discovered product in other recipes. As it happened, I was already planning on making a panna cotta for a friend's dinner get-together later in the week the challenge was posted. I had found a recipe for a buttermilk panna cotta, which I thought would have a nice tangy flavor.

Already being versed in the peculiarities of the veggie gelatin, I re-wrote the recipe in a way that I thought would work with its particular needs. I began by heating cream, lemon peel, and sugar in a small saucepan - sure, the recipe called for a medium saucepan, but I didn't think that would be necessary. The procedure said to bring it to a boil, so I let it do its thing on the stove while preparing the gelatin with my back turned. Next thing I knew, gushing sounds were coming from the stove top, and a billowing mess of frothy cream was everywhere. Fortunately, it provided a good reason for cleaning the stove and an even better educational experience of learning how to open the stove top for cleaning. Also, fortunately, I had some extra cream, so I could still proceed on my panna cotta mission.

To that end, I softened the gelatin and added it to the cream mixture and brought everything to a boil. It was at this point that the mixture should normally be cooled before the buttermilk and vanilla are added so that the buttermilk doesn't curdle. However, since the veggie gelatin is quick-setting, I had to act fast. I decided standing outside whisking it for a few minutes would be good enough. And then instead of adding the buttermilk and vanilla to my cream mixture, I added it to them (remember the small saucepan instead of the large one?). In any case, I mixed it all up and found that I had a quite a mess on my hands. It appears that the cream-gelatin mixture had already started to set so that once I added it to the buttermilk, I had chunks of gelatinous cream floating in a sea of purple buttermilk (due to the addition of the vanilla). I hoped that this would remedy itself as it set, and so I set the mixture in the refrigerator and crossed my fingers. There may have been someone I was trying to impress at the dinner I was attending, so I was going for a crazy amazing dessert, not a lumpy, watery, purple, mess.

I meticulously checked on the panna cotta and wiggled its pan throughout the following hours, and only got more and more worried as no signs of cohesion could be detected. I headed out for the afternoon and came back to an unchanged unfortunate panna cotta disaster. There is no evidence of this first attempt - consider yourself spared.

Fortunately for me, I had prepared for this and picked up the ingredients for the florentines on the way home. I decided to cut my losses on the panna cotta, and go for my attempt at dessert number two of the day. The florentines were easy enough to mix up, though the actual baking of the cookies took quite a bit of time. However, being in a frustrated baking state and nervous about how things at the dinner would go, maybe it was best I had something to focus on. I packed up the baked cookies and chocolate chips and headed to my friend's place for dinner to assemble them.

The cookies turned out wonderful, and everyone at the party enjoyed them, including the guy I was trying to impress. I had tried florentines before from Whole Foods and gave up before I finished the box, but these were way better.



I finished the panna cotta saga this past evening with the IF. We fashioned a panna cotta smackdown. In one corner, a panna cotta with agar agar, coconult milk, and yogurt...


...and in the other corner, Giada's recipe using the veggie gelatin.

The winner? I vote for Giada's recipe, but I'd add some vanilla, lemon, peel, and use less gelatin next time. The first panna cotta tasted mostly like thick yogurt to me - we added some berry sauce to make it more tasty. Overall, I found the veggie gelatin panna cotta to be quite smooth, while the IF reported small bits of agar agar that remained in its panna cotta - otherwise, I think both would work well, although the agar agar might be better to use in another attempt at a buttermilk panna cotta. Also, good to know, both panna cottas set much faster than traditional varieties - in only about an hour or so.

On a more personal note, in case anyone was wondering, I'll report that cookies can't buy you love. But then, would I really want to date someone who'd only want me for my cookies? No, no I would not.



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