Mango & Coffee Panna Cotta

On a visit to Bistro One Zero Three, I fell in love with this unassuming dessert - coffee panna cotta. Since then, I decided that this will be in my to-do list.

One fine day, plowing through this recipe book "花样食尚:小小米桶的60道贴心创意美食" that I bought long time ago while I was in Shanghai, I found a recipe for Mango Panna Cotta. I wonder why I did not realized it was Panna Cotta all along. Maybe I was fooled by it's Chinese name "芒果鲜奶酪 which literally translates to Mango Fresh Cream Curd.

Now I just have to find the coffee layer on the top to obtain the same thing that I had at Bistro One Zero Three and I found it in Chubby Hubby's Espress Gelee. After careful assembly, I'm done!... though not as pretty as I'd like them to be.

I should have used another milk instead of the Marigold HL milk that I have in the fridge as the strong artificial vanilla taste of the milk kind of turn me off slightly. Also I think there's more water content in the milk than fats which explains why there's a thin layer of "water" at the bottom of the panna cottas.

Nevertheless, they were really good, both the mango and coffee versions but especially the coffee one.

Panna Cotta
Makes 6 small glasses
(Adapted recipe)

Ingredients
300ml milk
500ml fresh cream (I used whipping cream)
80g sugar
1.5 tbsp gelatin powder

Optional : mango puree and some mango cubes

Method

1. Pour milk, fresh cream and sugar into a saucepan. Stir well to try dissolve some of the sugar.
2. Sprinkle gelatin powder evenly into the saucepan. Rest for 5minutes
3. Over low fire, heat the mixture slightly, stirring to dissolve the sugar and gelatin powder. Off the fire, when the milk mixture feels hot when touched but not scalding. Do not bring the milk mixture to boil or else the gelatin will lose it's coagulation purpose.
4. Pour the milk mixture into glasses and chill to set in the fridge for at least 4 hours.
5. Optional: for mango panna cotta, just puree some mangoes and put them on top of the chilled panna cotta when ready. Do cut some mango cubes and place them on the puree for decoration.

Espresso Gelee
(Adapted version)


Ingredients

1 cup espresso (cold filtered)
1 teaspoon flavourless powdered gelatin
3 tablespoons sugar

Method

1. Place espresso and sugar in a small saucepan. Stir to dissolve some of the sugar.
2. Sprinkle the gelatin evenly over it. Let the mixture rest for 5 minutes, until the gelatin softens.
3. Over a low fire, heat the espresso mixture and stir until all the sugar and gelatin powder are dissolved. Do not let the mixture come to a simmer. 
4. Strain through a fine sieve. Let the espresso mixture cool to room temperature.
5. Gently pour it over each portion of panna cotta. Cover with cling wrap and refrigerate until set, about 1 hour.