Stylish Panna Cotta

Ohh how much I love preparing those little desserts! Perfect with coffee, vanilla-flavoured jelly-like dessert, easy to prepare and without using the oven :) It looks elegant on a party table and prepared in a more sophisticated way - it will impress Your guests :)

Panna Cotta might be prepared in dozen of different flavours(many different extracts might be used instead of vanilla - like almond, coconut, rum, citrus ones...) and in many different shapes(it is up to You what kind of receptacle or form You'll pour it into :) )

Original recipe from this website.

I have found all these wonders on Pinterest (click on the link and all the wonders will appear ;) ) and I thought - oh my God, it is so easy and looks so classy and stylish! How is it possible that I haven't thought about it earlier?! :)

So here I'm sharing with You that big secret of preparing those wonderful panna cottas :)

Ingredients: (for 4-7 portions)

• 3 teaspoons of powdered gelatin
• 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
• 250 ml of 30-36% cream
• 250 ml of milk (2-3,2% of fat, not less)
• 80 g of sugar

Optional ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon of rum 
• 1 tablespoon of white wine

Decoration:

• Fresh fruit (for instance: strawberries, raspberries, wild strawberries, cherries), fruit mousse, 
• caramel, 
• chocolate, 
• nuts, 
• small meringues, 
• etc. :)

Preparation:

It depends what shape would you like to have. 

1. If You want jelly on the bottom - it goes first, stiffens completely, then You pour cooled down (! not to melt the jelly) panna cotta mixture and put back in the fridge.
2. If the jelly is supposed to be the last layer, panna cotta must be completely ready, after a few hours in the fridge and the jelly You pour on it must be cool too, not to melt panna cotta.
3. If You fancy a slantwise one - first of all, pour the jelly and put the tumbler/etc for instance inside the muffin pan (so that it remains stable, in a-slant position), put in the fridge to let it stiffen completely and after that pour cooled down panna cotta mixture.
4. There are plenty other variations of preparing panna cottas, You'll find it - mostly with instructions - here :)

General instructions, to make panna cotta:

1. Put the gelatin in a tumbler and suffuse it with 2 tablespoons of water. Leave it for 5 minutes.
2. Take a pot and put the cream, milk, sugar and vanilla extract inside. Stir till the sugar is melted.
3. Add optional ingredients if you want to.
4. Boil and take it out quickly from your cooker. Add the gelatin and stir quickly for more or less 1 minute till the gelatin melts completely.
5. Pour the mixture into cups.
6. Cool it. Cover with (for example) aluminium foil and put in the fridge for at least 4 hours (entire night advisable)

• How to take Panna Cotta out of the cup?

If You use such nice transparent tumblers, there is no need to take the panna cottas out of them, unless you want to.

To take it out easily you can put the cup for a few seconds in hot water. Then, keep the cup upside down and shake more or less gently till it comes unstuck from the cup's side. Be careful it may fall down!
Another way is just to put the knife inside the cup's edge and cut it inside near to the edges of the cup.

Strawberry Yoghurt Cake

I was looking for a nice strawberry cake recipe. But not the strawberry cake I’ve already made, ahh, I craved for something new, as I’m addicted to trying new recipes. And I found this strawberry yoghurt cake. One word: Wow! That’s the quickest and the one of the cheapest cake I’ve ever made! And I needed to bake 2 pans, one after another, day after day, cause it disappeared so quickly! I’m utterly shocked! And how many variations this one particular cake has, that’s unbelievable! Delicate, spongy, sweet, perfect for a morning coffee and for a nice lunch at work ;-) What’s more, that’s one of the ‘light’ cakes, so we can feel excused for eating half of the baking pan ;) (giggle) 

I do recommend!

The only thing that I found particularly difficult to explain to You is a polish dessert - powdered, quick, jelly-like, fruit-flavoured 'kisiel'. I can't find an equivalent for it in English. I do encourage You to look up for it. Wikipedia defines it as 'kissel' and explains a little bit what it is. If You are unable to buy it, You can easily use jam ;)
I made quite a lot of changes, though still - big thanks for KwestiaSmaku for the recipe!

Ingredients:

1 glass = 250ml

• 2 big eggs
• 1 glass of greek yoghurt
• 2 glasses of flour
• 2 teaspoons of baking powder
• 500g of strawberries
• ¾ -1 glass of sugar
• 2 tablespoons of vanilla sugar
• 25g of melted butter (or 25g of oil)
• 1 powdered strawberry kissel
• 2-3 tablespoons of strawberry jam

Optional ingredients:

• Powdered sugar
• X g of any other berries ;) (I had one bowl of currants from my garden, so I used them J)
• Icing sugar

Preparation:

1. Bring eggs and yoghurt to room temperature.
2. Prepare 3 bowls. Mix flour with baking powder very precisely and sieve to the 1^st bowl. Put aside.
3. Wash your fruit. Take 500g of strawberries, cut out the leaves, divide into halves (250g each), put in remaining 2 bowls. Cut the strawberries into halves (if the strawberry is really big – 3 pieces)
4. Take a mixer’s bowl. Put sugar and vanilla sugar inside.
5. Melt the butter in a small pot.
6. Take a rectangular baking pan (preferably 20x30 cm, might be a little bit bigger), grease it precisely with soft butter. Put aside.
7. Start preheating the oven to 165C.
8. Prepare the kissel as the recipe on the packaging says. Mix with jam. Mix 1/3 of this kissel-jam mixture with one strawberry bowl. Put aside.
9. Add eggs to the mixer’s bowl with sugars.
10. Using a mixer, start beating for 7 minutes. After that time, put the mixer aside, add yoghurt, melted butter, sieved flour with baking powder and slowly, precisely, for a short time, stir, using a big spoon or spatula, only till all the ingredients link, not longer.
11. Put the dough in previously prepared greased baking pan, distribute the dough all over the pan.
12. Take a bowl with kissel strawberries. Here – preferably – don’t use much of the kissel as it may destroy the cake, it is perfectly enough if there is some kissel on the strawberry. Put the strawberries all over the cake, leaving some space between them (chequered pattern works and looks perfectly).
13. When done, put it in the oven and bake for 20 minutes. Observe your cake, it might take less or more time for Your cake to be ready, as every oven works differently – You are probably the person who knows it best.
14. After those 20 minutes, if the top is gold, use a toothpick to check, if it is ready inside. If not – cover the top with foil and bake for another 10 minutes or so.*
15. Cool down, take out from the pan. Take the second bowl with strawberries and kissel, fill the holes in the cake - firstly with some kissel, then with a strawberry.
16. Sprinkle the cake with (for instance) remaining fruit (or any other additional fruit if You have prepared them), powdered sugar, icing sugar or add remaining kissel all over the cake.
17. Bon Appetit! ;)

*the cake should be much bigger, its sides should stick out from the pan, the top should be gold and a toothpick clean (if there is any cake glued to a toothpick, it is not ready yet)

Burning Bananas

I've always dreamt of preparing them. I have no idea why did it take me so long to do it. I think it is because of that 'burning part' that I was afraid of. But - in this case, there is no need to be afraid of fire :) Of course remember about all the necessary precautions against fire but it is not that scary :) 

And the effect - ahhh, wonderful :) And it is so easy to prepare it ! Unbelievable! :) Must try!

The inspiration for the recipe comes - surprisingly - from the packaging of cinnamon :) Changed, as always, works perfectly :)

Ingredients:

• 2-3 bananas (preferably hard ones)
• 40-50 g of butter
• 1/4 glass of brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon of cinammon
• 1 orange - squeezed, to get 1/4-1/2 glass of the orange juice
• 1/4-1/2 glass of Golden Rum or Whisky

Decoration:

• Ice cream - for example vanilla ones
• Whipped cream
• Any favourite sauce

Preparation:

1. Take bananas, wash, peel, cut - the length and breadth of them.*
2. Take a frying pan, put butter on it and start heating on the lowest heat, so that the butter melts. Add sugar** and cinammon. Stir.
3. Add bananas, boil, to get caramel. Stir from time to time.
4. When the caramel is ready, add orange juice and cover everything with a lid, to let the liquid thicken.
5. Add Golden Rum or Whisky. Stir.
6. Using a lighter or a matchstick, set bananas on fire.
7. Burn for a while. Damp down the fire by using a lid (but it will probably stop burning on its own).
8. Gently take them out from the frying pan and put on a plate.
9. Decorate.
10. Bon Appetit!! :)

*Even if you consider your bananas small and you are unwilling to cut them - I do recommend it, at least into halves, because after preparation, they get very soft and it is hard to take them out from the frying pan.

** If there is still too little butter and what you get is dry sugar - add a little more butter to get a liquid-like substance.

Eton Mess

Without a hesitate I claim that this is a gourmet sensation vol.2 :) It also has plenty of advantages: it is easy to prepare, with every fruit you wish and can be a 'soft' dessert or it can contain some ingredients for adults... :)

Slightly changed, recipe comes from Nigella Lawson.

Ingredients:

• 1 packaging of ready-made meringue
• 300 ml of 36% cream
• 1/2-1 kg of fruit (strawberries, raspberries, cherries, blueberries...)
• 2-4 teaspoons of vanilla sugar

Optional ingredients:

• strawberry, pomegranate, raspberry, cherry syrup

Preparation:

1. Wash your fruit. Dry on a paper towel. Cut 3/4 of them into smaller pieces (not in the case of raspberries or cherries, they're small enough), put into a bowl.
2. Sprinkle your fruit with vanilla sugar, put aside.
3. Using a mixer, prepare the cream. Put the cream in a mixer's bowl, add 1-2 teaspoons of vanilla sugar and mix - it needs to be really stiff (it will take around 5-9 minutes of mixing).
4. Crumble the meringue.
5. Prepare some dessert bowls - start making tiers in every dessert bowl, starting from whichever ingredient you wish (for example: cream, meringue, (syrup), fruit...) the last tier belongs to fruit - either chopped ones or the remained 1/4.
6. Bon appetit! :)

About the Cherry Mess:

I simply used some cherries from my Cherry Liqueur (I didn't sprinkle them with anything) and instead of syrup I put 2-4 teaspoons of the liqueur. For adults - worth, worth trying!

Tiramisu

Gourmet sensation. Always, in every variation :)

Recipe from this website, but changed, to fit a springform pan.

Ingredients:

• 2-3 packs of ladyfingers
• 300 ml of strong espresso
• 120 ml of Amaretto syrup
• 8 egg yolks (in a room temperature)
• 8 tablespoons of sugar
• 500 g of mascarpone (cold)
• cocoa (bitter one, for baking), to sprinkle the tiers and the top

Preparation:

1. Prepare yolks. They need to be in a room temperature.
2. Take a bowl. Prepare espresso, mix with Amaretto syrup in the bowl. Cool down.
3. Take a metal bowl, put yolks inside, add sugar and using a mixer, mix on its highest rotation for at least 8 minutes till you get thick, fluffy and light substance.*
4. Using a tablespoon, add one of mascarpone to yolks, mix (average rotation) till smooth, then add another, etc. till all the mascarpone is added. This cream needs to be thick and fluffy.
5. Take a springform pan, ladyfingers and all the bowls. 
6. Take 1 ladyfinger, put for 2 seconds in coffee-Amaretto mixture(2 seconds for both sides of a ladyfinger**), put in the springform pan. Repeat till you get one full tier of ladyfingers on the bottom of the springform pan.
7. Sprinkle it with cocoa, using a sieve.
8. Put the yolks-mascarpone cream on it (do not worry that cocoa mixes with the cream)
9. Put another tier of ladyfingers, cocoa, cream.
10. Repeat all the steps, till all the ingredients are gone. The top is the cream and cocoa.***
11. Put in the fridge for at least 3 hours (entire night is perfect, especially if the cream isn't thick enough)
12. It may stay in the fridge for few days. But I don't think it will ;)
13. Bon Appetit!

* This is the most important part of making a good Tiramisu. While beating, it is advisable not to move the mixer too often. Beaten yolks need to be thick, fluffy, bright. If they aren't - add special powder that will stiffen, consolidate it (in Poland - śmietan-fix). If you don't have such powder and the cream is wet, with water and is more like a liquid (which is bad) you can either use it - but then Tiramisu needs to stay in the fridge for the entire night (even though it won't fully fix it, there will be a problem with taking it out of the springform pan and cutting a decent piece to put on a plate) or prepare the cream from the very beginning - advisable. 

** It needs to be done quickly, otherwise ladyfingers will crumble.

*** It is possible to make 3 tiers out of this recipe. But I do not recommend it. With 3 tiers, there are too many ladyfingers and too little cream. 
It is better (both if it comes to its appearance and the easiness of taking it out) to finish on 2.