This layered mango panna cotta is an absolutely delicious yet easy to put together dessert. A perfect way to use mangoes during summer and wow your guests.
I love panna cotta as a dessert. It is an easy to put together dessert, and always loved by everyone. What’s not to love- a luscious creamy pudding that you can prep in advance. Plus, it tastes great with fresh ripe fruits like strawberries, cherries, peaches and in this case mango.
Panna cotta is also easily adaptable to fit many dietary restrictions. It is gluten free in its most simple form, and with a few easy dairy replacements can be made vegan too.
So, what is Panna Cotta?
Panna cotta is an italian dessert, made from warming cream just enough to dissolve sugar and gelatin. It is served chilled, and is super easy to make. Panna cotta can be a very light, soft pudding using milk and fruit puree, or a rich, thick pudding using mostly cream. The basic core ingredients are inexpensive, and yet it tastes luxurious and looks beautiful.
Wikipedia cites the origins of panna cotta to a Hungarian woman in the early 1900s, though there is also a mention of a dish in an 1879 dictionary made of cream cooked with gelatin and molded. Whatever the origins, panna cotta is one dessert you should have in your recipe cards.
How do you make Panna Cotta?
Many are under the wrong impression that panna cotta is a complicated dessert. It isn’t. There are very few steps in the preparation of panna cotta, and the only way you can screw up is if you don’t dissolve the gelatin properly.
The steps to make panna cotta are pretty simple.
- Warm the cream in a saucepan.
- Add sugar, and heat the cream till the sugar dissolves. (Here is when you can get creative by infusing the cream with vanilla beans, or different spices or adding coffee or any other flavor)
- While you are warming up the cream, soften the gelatin in a cold liquid.
- Once the gelatin blooms, you add that to the warm cream mixture, making sure there are no lumps.
- This mixture is then poured into molds, and allowed to set.
- You can serve the panna cotta in the molds itself, or unmold and top it with your favorite toppings. Fresh fruit makes a lovely pairing with the creamy panna cotta.
The hardest part about making panna cotta is achieving the proper consistency and texture—it should be silky smooth and just firm, with a gentle wobble. Getting the cream to gelatin ratio helps in that. For every cup of cream, 3/4 tsp-1 tsp gelatin is the ideal ratio to get a good texture.
