Mocha Pannacotta

Doesn’t that have a marvellous ring to it?  🙂

Ever since I first read a recipe for pannacotta, and looked at a photo of this creamy dessert, I’ve wanted to eat one, never mind try to make one. 

Then I found a recipe for a coffee panacotta on www.eatingwell.com which sounded wonderful – I’m a sucker for coffee anything.  And what makes coffee even better?  Chocolate, of course.  So, using their recipe as a starting point for ingredient proportions, here’s my  recipe for a coffee pannacotta with a chocolate twist.

Coffee Pannacotta with Coffee Chocolate Shards

Pannacotta

1 cup hot filter coffee

3 tsps unflavoured gelatine

3/4 cup plain greek yoghurt

3/4 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup white sugar

1/2 cup cream, chilled

• Place 1/4 cup of coffee in a small bowl, sprinkle the gelatine over the top and stir in, set aside for 5 minutes
• Microwave the gelatine mix for a few seconds to reheat but don’t bring it to the boil, then stir until the gelatine has completely dissolved
• Add the sugar to the gelatine mix and stir until the sugar has also dissolved
• Whisk the remaining 3/4 cup coffee, the yoghurt, milk and vanilla together in a medium sized bowl
• Slowly whisk the gelatine mixture into the yoghurt mixture, blending well
• Place the bowl in the fridge and leave to thicken, giving it an occasional stir, it’ll take about 30 to 40 minutes
• Beat the cream until soft peaks form, then whisk into the yoghurt mixture until smooth
• Divide between 6 moulds or teacups, cover and leave in the fridge to set, at least 3 hours
• Turn out onto serving plates and decorate with the chocolate shards and chocolate coated coffee beans
• Enjoy!

Coffee Chocolate Shards and Coffee Coated Coffee Beans

1 bar of good quality dark chocolate

1 to 2 tbsps coffee beans

• Melt the chocolate in a small bowl over boiling water
• Set aside a few whole coffee beans, and grind the rest of the beans fairly coarsely in a blender or coffee grinder, leaving a few small chunks in the mix
• Stir the whole beans into the chocolate first, remove each bean and place on a sheet of baking paper to set
• Stir the ground coffee into the remainder of the chocolate, then spread out about 2 mls thick on a  piece of baking paper; set aside to cool and set
• Roughly chop the coffee chocolate into shards and use to decorate the pannacotta along with the whole beans

So that was my first experiment with and taste of pannacotta.  Would I make it again?  Oh yes, they were delicious – I ate mine while taking the photographs 😉 The yoghurt gave the pannacotta a lovely tangy-ness, which went so well with the dark chocolate and crunchy coffee bits. 

Can’t wait to experiment with some different flavours, and recipes that use all cream and no yoghurt – I saw a recipe for a limencello pannacotta the other day – yum!