Matcha pannacotta

Wake up, look at the alarm. Damn, it’s only 3 am… Too early… Go back to sleep. Wake up, look at the alarm… Hmmm, 5.30 am. That is late enough, isn’t it? I would jump out of my bed and run excited to my parents bedroom. Screaming something like ‘It’s my birthday, it’s my birthday!’ The tradition was that we would all go and sit on my parents bed (we actually all fell through the bed at one such occasion. Apparently the bed was not build for 6 people) and that’s when we would get presents. And let’s face it; birthday = presents, right?

Usually my parents – knowing us all too well – would give us a strict timeline. Do NOT wake us up before 6 am! But excitement and enthusiasm usually got the better of us so we would always be waaaay too early. Claiming we hadn’t seen that it was only 5.30! So my birthday was always fun and I loved it. Loved being the centre of attention. I’m not really sure when that all changed but I do think it was pretty early on. By the time I was 15 or 16, I no longer thought that birthdays were fun. O yes, the getting presents was fun, but I happened to have friends who did not get along together very well, so what was the point of celebrating when I could only invite one half of my friends?

Happy birthday girl at 4!

These days, birthdays are well, just another year older, really… Getting close to my fifties is somewhat daunting I have to confess. In case you were wondering, today is my 49th birthday. I sometimes still feel that there must be some kind of mistake made. That I wasn’t born in 1963 but rather much later. I don’t feel 49 (of course I have no way of knowing how one is supposed to feel at 49!) and I’m frquently being told that I don’t look 49 either. (I’ve had to show some sort of ID a few times to actually proof that I was that old..lol) But the truth is, that I am and o well, I do feel my age too from time to time.

When I’ve had a really busy day I can feel my bones and muscles protesting (doing a little more sports would help!) but overall, I think I cannot complain. Today is going to be a typical birthday for me; hiding in plain sight for friends and family… We never have a party and if we can, we try and get out of the country to celebrate somewhere else. Or we go out for a nice dinner. Just the two of us and sometimes with a few friends, but that’s it. Enough party for me!

Now on to the subject of matcha. I’d had seen matcha featured in many blogposts over the years but I’d never managed to actually find that elusive green powder and when I finally found a source for it, it turned out they ran out of it, the time I was there to get it. Luck was not on my side. I probably have looked in the wrong placed to, but that’s a whole other subject.

Matcha

I mentioned something on a blog post and sweet Kate from Serendipity send me an email asking if she could send me some of the matcha? I was delighted she would take the trouble to send it to me and a few days later I had two packages of matcha in my mailbox. One was bright green and from Japan, the other was a much duller color and apparently from Belgium. Interesting how those two would react!

Now ofcourse I wanted to make something that would highlight that fantastic green, so my first thought was to make a matcha pannacotta. I had found just the recipe for it, so I set about it. Having made a zillion pannacotta’s before I didn’t think much about it, poured the finished product into the molds and into the fridge.

But then something interesting happened; the substance split. I’ve never had this happen before and while the pannacotta’s are still delicious and if turned over they still hold their shape, it’s interesting to know why this happened.

Holding it's shape but barely

I used double cream and milk for this… You can read what I’ve done in the recipe below. If you’ve got any thoughts on why the mixture split, please let me know! I have a feeling that it wasn’t warm enough as you can still see the little powder dots everywhere which I think is not what’s supposed to happen…

Matcha pannacotta

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Serves	6
Prep time	20 minutes
Cook time	4 hours
Total time	4 hours, 20 minutes
Allergy	Milk
Meal type	Dessert
Misc	Pre-preparable, Serve Cold
From book	Panna cotta by Camilla Saulsbury

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons matcha powder
• 2 cups double cream
• 1 1/4 cup full fat milk
• 1 vanilla pod
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3,5 sheets gelatin (or 2 tbsp dried)

Directions

Put the double cream, milk, seeds of the vanilla bean and sugar in a small saucepan and heat until close to boiling but not actually boiling. Take of the heat. Soak your gelatin leaves in cold water for 5 minutes.

Put the matcha into a cup and add one cup of the hot mixture slowly into the powder while vigorously whisking. Once combined add the matcha mixture into the cream mixture.

Add the soaked gelatin (squeeze out the moisture) into the warm cream and whisk until dissolved. Pour the cream into your ramekins, glasses or other molds. Leave to stand in the fridge for at least 4 hours before unmolding. For unmolding you can dip the ramekins into hot water (making sure the water does not get into your molds ofcourse) for a few seconds and then turn them onto a plate and lift the mold.

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• Cinnamon/amaretto pannacotta with poached pears
• How not to style your pannacotta
• Yeasted Meringue coffee cake; Daring Bakers march 2011
• Lemon buttermilk pannacotta
• Delicious panna cotta

Cinnamon pannacotta with amaretto

Decisions can sometimes be the hardest things to make. Do we hold on to things because it makes sense or because we are used to ‘having’ it? It’s the time of month to do my tax returns and that got me thinking about the cost involved in keeping my studio versus the return it gives me. Three years ago when I first rented the place we said we would have a look at how it went and if it would be profitable enough for me to keep the studio or if we would need to look for another solution. In 5 months time I will have to renew the contract for 5 years or cancel it… So I did a lot of calculating and then some more thinking of different angles, other ways to use the studio but it seems to all lead towards the inevitable end of my studio…

Pannacotta and autumn goodness!

My goal has also changed in the last three years from doing more people shots to doing more food and with that comes the fact that I am using my studio less except for larger productions where a little extra space is needed. I still do the occasional portrait in the studio as well as product photography but in the end I do not need 120 M2 to do the work. A lot is done at home (such as these lovely pannacotta’s) since I have more cooking equipment there…

But even though my mind tells me that it makes sense to find another solution; my heart tells me differently! I love my studio. Spend hours and hours there, painted and decorated the whole place and have soooo many props stored there too. The scenario’s of what next keep tumbling through my mind… It makes me tired to even think of all the consequences but there are a couple of possible scenario’s

1.  Keep the studio
2. Find a smaller studio
3. Convert one of the rooms at home into a studio of sorts and rent a larger studio if I need one
4. Co-rent a studio with a photographer friend in Amsterdam
5. Store all my stuff in a storage facility (but that would mean it’s hard to find anything if I need it)

Right now I’m leaning strongly towards option 3. But believe me when I say I keep changing my mind just about every day or so. Something I have no need to change my mind over is this totally delicious pannacotta with a hint of amaretto… You’re gonna love this with some poached pears!

The original recipe for the pannacotta came from Delicious cookbook by Valli Little which I had bought the day before (if only for the gorgeous photographs by Brett Stevens and styling by David Morgan!) and since Charlotte was coming over for a cooking session we cooked all the recipes from the book. A totally delicious hummus and fallafel with green peas and pita bread were our first courses after which the room was filled with garlic… I will remake the hummus and falaffel and shoot them at some point but the light was gone and none was left after dinner.

I changed the recipe for the pannacotta by adding amaretto instead of cognac as I simply do not like cognac but love amaretto. For the pears I used just about anything I had on hand; pomegranate juice (leftover from the pomegranates we used with the hummus), verjuice and loads of spices… Loved it and again not as red as I would have wanted them to be. I’m gonna try and add some dark ruby port in them next time. That should do the trick!

Poached pears in verjuice

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Serves	6
Prep time	20 minutes
Cook time	30 minutes
Total time	50 minutes
Allergy	Milk
Meal type	Dessert

Ingredients

• 1kg Wilder Gieseman pears (or another pear that can be poached)
• 1 cup verjuice
• 3 star anise
• 3 sticks cinnamon
• 6 green cardamom pods (crushed)
• 1 pomegranate (juice only)
• 3 tablespoons sugar (use sugar to taste and depending on the sweetness of the pears)

Directions

Peel and core the pears.

Put the pears in a pan that is big enough to hold the pears plus poaching liquid. Add the verjuice, the sugar, the pomegranate juice, the cardamom, staranise and cinnamon and top with water until the pears are almost covered but not quite.

Bring to the boil and cook until the sugar is dissolved. Turn the heat down and let it simmer until the pears are done. This really varies a lot depending on the type of pear you use. For the Wilder Giesseman pear that I used it was stated it should cook 1 1/5 hr but mine were done after 20 minutes! So check regularly if they are soft enough. Once cooked let the pears cool in the liquid. If the liquid is still too thin you can remove the pears and cook the liquid down a little further until it becomes syrupie..

Note

Delicious autumn dessert and paired with the cinnamon pannacotta it is really good!

Cinnamon/amaretto pannacotta

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Serves	6
Prep time	1 hour, 30 minutes
Cook time	4 hours
Total time	5 hours, 30 minutes
Meal type	Dessert
Region	Italian

Ingredients

• 500ml whipping cream
• 125ml milk
• 3 cinnamon sticks
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 40g sugar
• 3 sheets gelatin
• 2 tablespoons amaretto

Directions

Bring the milk, cream, cinnamon sticks, ground cinnamon and sugar on medium heat to the boil, take the pan of the fire and leave to stand for about an hour to infuse the flavors into the cream.

Soak your gelatin leaves for 5 minutes in cold water until they are soft. Slowly heat the cream mixture on low heat. Squeeze the water out of the gelatin leafs and still them into the warm cream until they dissolve. Add the amaretto en put the liquid through a sieve. Pour your pannacotta into 6 ramekins or other forms and leave them in the fridge for at least 4 hours to firm up.

Note

For some reason I had a skin forming on the pannacotta so my guess is that it was still slightly too warm when I put it in the fridge. I've never had this issue before with any pannacotta so I'm a bit unsure what caused it. Thought I mention it anyway!

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This is a school example of how you should not be styling your pannacotta!

Once upon a time there was this girl that had all these pretty pictures in her head. Beautiful images of wonderfully styled desserts, simple yet effective and made with just the flick of a spoon or in the blink of an eye. But sometimes, every so often, the evil witch came by and made sure that all her desserts looked absolutely horrible. No amount of begging or pleading would make the witches curse over the desserts go away. No matter what the girl would do; all her desserts came out completely wrong, putting her in a miserable state of mind.

Maybe that is a slight exaggeration… There is nothing wrong with my state of mind, other then the fact that I had to laugh pretty hard at myself when I tried to plate up these pannacotta’s so I could make a ‘pretty’ picture. Needless to say that that didn’t exactly work as I had envisioned it before!

I’ve made many pannacotta’s before.. Like this apple cinnamon one, this wonderful pannacotta with lemon-buttermilk and now… this disaster of a pannacotta.. I was wondering if I should be sharing something that, obviously, is not the best looking example when it comes to styling, but then I figured; lots of people struggle with styling a dish (including myself) so why not share the ones that went wrong? On the bright side; the colors look pretty enough.

I made this plum pannacotta when my father in law was coming over for dinner the other night and because I was a little late in making my pannacotta I put the ones we had for dinner in glasses, so that looked pretty enough and no harm was done for our dinner. But because I always end up making a bit too much of the pannacotta I also filled a couple of the molds I normally use for this dessert. I have the ones you see here: on the left. They work fine most of the time but what I should have realized is that pouring the cream mixture in after putting the plum mixture in, was bound to go pear shaped.

And while that was not a big issue when I served it in a glass, it looks slightly messy when you do that and then turn the pannacotta out as I did in the first picture… I tried to save the day by adding a few things on top of the pannacotta. That’s the nutty crumbles you see and the small pieces of plum. But that didn’t help matters either!

And no putting it in a glass didn't work either

I guess that just proofed that if it is wrong, it is wrong and no amount of fiddling around will make it any better. With everything I added to the poor pannacotta it sort of started to collaps upon itself even more, leaving just a flat bit of cream with a blob of plumcoulis on top. It tasted good though, even though the plums had their best time and I will definitely not be making this pannacotta again. I’ve had better!

Plum pannacotta

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Serves	6
Prep time	10 minutes
Cook time	4 hours
Total time	4 hours, 10 minutes
Allergy	Milk
Meal type	Dessert
Misc	Serve Cold
Region	Italian
Website	Tartelette

Ingredients

• 2 cups Plums (Cleaned and deseeded)
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 cups Heavy cream
• 3 sheets Gelatin
• 1/4 cup Honey
• 1 cup buttermilk (full fat)
• 1 piece vanilla bean

Directions

Clean the plums, remove the stone and put them in a blender. Once they're all cleaned make a puree of the fruit.

Place the water in small bowl and put the gelatin sheets in it. Reserve.

In a large heavy bottomed saucepan placed over medium heat, bring the heavy cream and honey to a simmer. When the cream is hot, remove from the heat and whisk in the reserved gelatin until it is completely dissolved. Add the buttermilk and whisk until well blended. Remove the seeds from the vanilla bean and add to the mix. Whisk to combine.

Put the plum mixture in the bottom of a glass and carefully pour the cream mixture on top. Let stand at room temperature for 20 minutes and then refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving to let the cream set properly.

Note

The pannacotta itself is great but if you use plums, make sure that they are sweet and have a nice texture as that will heavily influence how your end result will be. I didn't pay enough attention to that with the result being that this was just a mediocre pannacotta for me.

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• Delicious panna cotta
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Cranberry pannacotta

I have a thing for pannacotta…. ever since I tasted the first (the first homemade version that is) pannacotta I am sort of addicted. It’s not that I make this dessert every week or even every month for that matter, but no matter what flavor I make; I love it every single time… From the lemon buttermilk pannacotta, to the cinnamon apple pannacotta, to this seasonal variety. They’re all good… Not so good for the waistline though; lots of cream in there…

While we initially wanted to make the Italian icecream for dessert (and don’t worry, we will be making that before the year is over.. ) we figured a little lighter then that would be advisable. It’s weird really that most christmas dishes are rather heavy on the stomach; we had to really make adjustments from our original menu to the current one to make sure that we didn’t have to roll every one out the door. I don’t know about you but I don’t particularly like the overly full feeling that you get after eating too much. I do – in fact – hate that feeling and while I am the only one to blame for that feeling when it happens to me, I would like to think that I try to avoid it as much as possible. So we made a few adjustments to the final menu; some things were cancelled, other things were added. No potatoes at the main course; the cream leek tart will be more then enough even without potatoes. And a nice fresh salad to go with the ham and the tart and then for dessert a pannacotta. While the pannacotta is arguably not exactly leaner then the Italian icecream when you count it in calories; it does feel lighter due to the smaller portion and the fact that I will be changing the recipe that I followed for the above cranberry version. I am going to add the buttermilk in.

Dare we hope for a white christmas??

The lemon buttermilk pannacotta that I made before is perfect in that sense; due to the tartness of the buttermilk it looses some of it’s rich creamy texture making it fresh and light. And then I will add the cranberries to it for that seasonal feeling (and because I love cranberries too ofcourse) I will make them a little sweeter then the ones we use for the ham to counter balance the lemon and buttermilk. Hmmm, lovely… and that then is our christmas menu complete!

I will give you below the recipe for the original cranberry pannacotta which I made yesterday. If you make it I would advise adding a little lemon or some other sour tasting flavor to pick it up a little.

Yesterday it has been snowing almost the entire day resulting in a big pile of white fluffy snow today and when the sun broke through the clouds this morning I just had to go for a little walk in the park across from our house. Isn’t it beautiful?? Too bad that it will probably not last until christmas. It’s gonna be melting starting tomorrow… O well, we had fun while it lasted, although it’s a nightmare for traffic ofcourse. Our little country is not equipped to deal with things like heavy snow or frost; everyone is in  a state of panick, trains, trams and buses no longer operate due to frozen tracks, or whatever else happens and let’s not talk about the traffic jams!! Yesterday, a sunday no less, we had a total of 1200 minutes traffic jam and 90 traffic jams altogether. On a sunday! Imagine what would’ve happened if yesterday had been a monday.

Thanks to christmas holidays the traffic was bad but not as bad as it could have been on a regular working day. I was supposed to have a photoshoot with two kids wanting a portrait for their parents, but they had to come from far and well… the trains didn’t run so…. I had the morning off to enjoy the sunshine and the snow.

Here is the recipe for the pannacotta!

PANNACOTTA WITH CRANBERRIES (serves 4)

80 gr white castersugar

100 gr fresh cranberries

1 vanillabean

375 ml whipping cream or double cream

2 leaves of gelatine

100 ml yogurt

4 forms (150 ml each) or one large form (0,5 ltr)

1. In a saucepan heat 50 gr of castersugar with 5 tbsp of water en add, once the sugar is melted, the cranberries. Simmer on low for about 3 minutes.

2. Cut the vanillabean open lenghtwise. Heat the cream in a saucepan and add the vanillabean and the rest of the sugar. Leave to simmer but not really boil for 5 minutes en make sure all sugar is dissolved. Remove the vanillabean from the cream and scrape the marrow from the vanilla with a sharp knife and add the marrow to the cream.

3. Soak the gelatine leaves for about 5 minutes in cold water. Squeeze them and add to the hot cream. Stir until dissolved. Leave to cool and add the yogurt. Divide the yogurtcream over the forms and spoon 1 teaspoon of the cranberries into each form. Put into the fridge for at least 3 hours. To remove the pannacotta from the forms, shortly keep them under a hot tab and put them on plates. Serve with the rest of the cranberries.

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• Cranberry sauce
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• Behind the scenes at a sweet photoshoot
• Matcha, matcha man and as age creeps by…
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Cinnamon pannacotta

It had been a while since I last made panna cotta and I think the last flavor I tried was the lemon buttermilk pannacotta which was absolutely fabulous, but I wanted to try something different this time. I used the Panna cotta book from Camilla Saulsbury again and picked the cinnamon variety. The original recipe called for caramel sauce on top but since I am not a huge caramel fan I figured apple would work great with the cinnamon flavors and it did!!

The making of the pannacotta was pretty simple as usual and very quick too. I had bought Kanzi apples which had a lovely sweet and tart flavor that worked really well in the compote. I added only one little bag of vanilla sugar and didn’t need to add anymore as the pannacotta itself was quite sweet so the combination with the tartness of the compote worked fabulously. In terms of color; it’s not the most appealing color for a pannacotta I think, but who cares if the flavor is soooo delicious!

CINNAMON PANNACOTTA WITH APPLE COMPOTE (adapted from Panna Cotta by Camilla Saulsbury)

2,5 cups heavy whipping cream

2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin or 3,5 leaf gelatin

1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

1 cup sour cream

1 vanilla bean or 1,5 tsp vanilla extract

2 tsp ground cinnamon

Apple compote (see below)

What I love about Camilla’s recipes is that they are really easy to follow and the flavors are amazing. I have not nearly made all the panna cotta’s in the book since they would kill my waistline, but ok on to this particular recipe. lovely cinnamon flavor!!

Place the cream in a heavy saucepan. Either sprinkle the gelatin over the cream and let stand for 5 minutes or – if you are using leaf gelatin as I was – put them in a bowl with water until they are submerged and let stand for a couple of minutes till the gelatin is softened, squeeze them to remove excess water and then add to the cream.

Add the brown sugar to the saucepan and cook and stir over low heat until both the gelatin and brown sugar are completely dissolved. Make sure not to bring the mixture to a boil. Whisk in the sour cream, vanillaseeds or extract and cinnamon until well blended and smooth.

Pour the mixture into whatever form you fancy. I’ve used regular molds as well as tiny round glasses which I thought looked kind of cute. Loosely cover with plastic wrap and  chill for 4 hours or up to overnight.

Cut around the edges of the panna cotta to loosen. Set each cup in shallow bowl of hot water for 10 seconds. Immediately invert onto a plate. I find that it helps if I then grab the plate and while holding the cup and plate together tightly give it one firm shake which then loosens up the panna cotta nicely. Spoon the apple compote (recipe below) onto the panna cotta and serve with whipped cream if you like.

APPLE COMPOTE

Apples that are not too sweet and not too sour but basically just use whichever you prefer.

Applejuice about 250 ml

lemonjuice

cinnamon

1 packet of vanillasugar or to your taste

You can really add lots of things to the apple compote if you like, such as raisins, cranberries and alcohol. Whatever you feel like. I like mine plain so didn’t add much more then that.

Peel and core the apples and cut them into slices or chunks. Put them in a saucepan and sprinkle with some lemon juice to prevent browning of the apples. Add applejuice and vanillasugar to the pan and bring to a boil. Cook them as long as needed to break down the apple pieces but make sure you still have some pieces left which creates the chunkiness that you want with apple compote. Add cinnamon and taste to see if the apples are sweet enough. If not you can add a little more sugar. enjoy!

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