I’ve been in a very creamy, custardy kind of place lately. I think it’s all the snow outside. The creamy richness of a custardy desert is just so comforting during winter, even if it’s a cold one. Cold custard, that is.
I was initially going to do a chai flavoured panacotta, but the chai idea got high jacked by a baked custard the other day when I wanted something warm, so I settled on an orange and ginger panacotta. It turned out even better that the baked chai custard (which I’m going to have to have another go at as it tasted lovely, but the texture wasn’t quite right), and was voted best dessert of the month in our house. It is a sensational balance of just enough sweet and just enough orange and ginger and a creaminess and firmness bordering on perfection. It smells and tastes and feels heavenly. There’s just a hint of resistance as you prod the unbroken top with the tip of your spoon, and then the surface tension breaks and you slide right in to the creamy interior. It’s very like sex.
Serves 4
Ingredients:
190 ml fresh squeezed orange juice
250 ml 30-35% m.f. cream
125 ml milk
vanilla pod (or excellent quality extract)
1/3 cup sugar
3 x 1 square inch pieces of orange zest, all traces of pith removed
3 Tbsp grated fresh ginger
½ tsp dry ginger
10 ml powdered plain gelatin
Soak gelatin in 125 ml milk, which has been warmed slightly.
Meanwhile, simmer orange juice, vanilla pod, grated ginger and zest in pan over medium heat for 190 minutes, or until the juice reduces to approximately ½ cup.
Stir in dry ginger, 250ml cream, sugar and gelatin/milk mixture to orange juice. Turn heat to low and stir until all gelatin and sugar is dissolved. Remove pan from heat, and, if using vanilla extract, add now. Otherwise scrape pod seeds into mixture as set pod aside. Strain mixture through a fine colander lined with cheesecloth to remove grated ginger fibre and zest,
Pour into 4 125 ml glasses and refrigerate for at least 5 hours, preferably overnight. If you are going to serve them more than 5 hour later, cover glasses with cling film after 5 hours. Do not press cling film to surface of panacotta. Serve with a little mound of fresh orange zest strips on top.
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