Vanilla Panacotta With Strawberry Sauce

Creamy, velvety italian dessert that deliciously drizzled with homemade strawberry sauce, is what i call a great summer time treat. It tastes just like what you can get at any Italian restaurants. Panacotta is an Italian classic dessert. I'll recommend using vanilla pod in this recepi instead of vanilla essence. The vanilla pod brings out distinctive vanilla flavour which makes a lot of difference in this smooth panacotta. The only trickiest part is the gelatine. Gelatine tends to form lumps easily, once you know how to handle it you can dish up panacotta at anytime....why wait for summer ha?

Strawberry sauce is very much easy to make at home. Drop everything in a pan and just wait for the magic to happen. Can anything be easier than this? Something easy as this makes a great accompanion to the panacotta.



Ingredients

For the Panacotta

1 1/2 tsp gelatin powder
1/2 cup milk
4 tbsp white sugar
1 1/2 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla essence/ 1 pod of vanilla


Strawberry Sauce

1 pint strawberries,hulled
1 tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp white sugar
1/4 cup water


Methods

In a bowl, add milk and sprinkle gelatin powder evenly. Set aside for 2 minutes

In a saucepan, over a medium heat, simmer cream and sugar. Once bubbles appeared along the edge of the pan, add in the vanilla essence. If using vanilla pods, slit the vanilla bean in the middle and scrap the seed. Drop the seed and the vanilla bean into the pan. Stir well. Remove from heat

Sieve the mixture, pour the gelatine mixture into the warm cream mixture and stir till the gelatine completely dissolved. Make sure no clotted gelatine or lumps.

Pour into ramekins and chill for 2-3 hours.

Using a knife, loosen the ramekins and transfer the panacotta into a serving plate and drizzle with strawberry sauce. Serve chilled


For the Strawberry Sauce

In a small pot, combine all the ingredients for "strawberry sauce". Cook over a medium heat for 20-30 minutes. Add more water if required to thin the sauce.


Notes:

• To avoid any gelatine lumps, do not add the gelatine mixture to a hot cream mixture. The cream mixture must be warm before adding the gelatine. Dissolved the gelatine completely. Undesolved gelatine is what's causing the panacotta to have lumps