Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Panna cotta

Today I hosted my small quilt group. We belong to a larger guild and take turns, about every 2 weeks, hosting and making dessert. It's always interesting to see what my friends choose to make.

Since I was hostess this time, I also chose to make dessert. I've been wanting to make panna cotta for my friends for quite awhile, and because it doesn't transport that well, I needed to prepare it when I hosted. The marvelous thing about this dessert is that it can be made ahead of time. I made it on Monday morning so it had plenty of time to set. Then, this morning I unmolded each one before everyone came and also made the pomegranate sauce. The sauce adds just enough acidity to offset the sweetness of the custard. I was also excited to try a suggestion I read about on eGullet for removing pomegranate seeds -- cut the fruit in half, then using a wooden spoon, rap hard on the outside of the shell. Amazingly, the seeds just fall out -- no mess, no fuss. It will be my preferred way of removing seeds from now on.

In honor of the season, I made a pumpkin panna cotta with a pomegranate sauce. The plates were licked clean. Lucky for me -- 2 people didn't show up! So now I can enjoy my pumpkin panna cotta for one more night. Here's a before-sauce and after-sauce look:


For reference, the dessert came from Camilla Saulsbury's Panna Cotta cookbook.

2 comments:

Meredith said...

Drool, pomegranate. What was in your sauce?

Peabody said...

Oh, pumpkin panna cotta...that is one I haven't thought of!