# Pannacotta serving ideas



## Cheese-lovers (Feb 10, 2006)

Hi,

We are new to this forums so yeah please dont be mean to us. We are studying year 12 Food and Hospitality and our first cooking task is to make pannacotta. We have been given the recipe to make it and we were looking for serving tips or ways to serve it. We are gonna make vanilla pannacotta with berry jelly and it is mainly raspberries.

Does anyone have any good ideas or can direct us to somewhere that does?

Thankyou in advance for your help

Kim & Krysten


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## Haggis (Feb 10, 2006)

Is the sauce you are going to be serving with it have a fair bit of juice? If so I would consider straining it to get a nice bit of clear colourful liquid which you could then pour in a puddle (real easy if the plate your using has a area that is lower down than the rest of the plate), place the panna cotta on top of this pool of sauce and then spoon a small amount of the sauce solids on the top so they ooze down the sides. 

Of course considering the vanilla panna cotta will be white and the sauce a nice vivid red a small sprig of mint leaves would not go astray perched on top either.

If you want to get particularly adventurous you could always create a sugar basket/cage or a flat version of one, it is fairly easy to do (well the purely circular version is alot easier than a sugar basket/cage). If using a cage you could do the same thing as above an then place the cage over the panna cotta.

You could also go for serving sweet, thin wafer biscuits leaning against/across the panna cotta which would also provide a textural contrast to the smooth softness of the panna cotta and sauce.

Just a few ideas to play around with.


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## Piccolina (Feb 10, 2006)

Hi Kim & Krysten, welcome to DC!  I can assure that no one here would ever be mean to you, very proud of the fact that we're simply not that kind of forum. We welcome all questions and levels of cooking skills, don't worry, you're both right at home here 

Haggis gave you some awesome ideas, many of which are ways that pro chefs like to plate up their panacotta in restaurants, as well as home cooks alike. Another thing you can do (if the dish that you made the pannacotta was deep enough) is to very, very gently (a sharp knife that has been quickly flashed under hot water helps here) is to cut the pannacotta in half horizontally. Ever so delicately remove the two layers and place a little of your berry sauce on the bottom layer, topped with a few whole berries. Then put the top layer of pannacotta back on top. 

Mint goes so well with panacotta as Haggis mentioned, so does a touch of citrus peal (a curl of fresh lemon peal for example).  Another good point (if possible) is to use a real vanilla bean (as opposed to vanilla extract) in the panacotta, the flavour from the seeds are gorgeous and work so well in a creamy, mild dish like this. As a twist, you could ways try almond extract instead of vanilla, which does go so well with raspberries


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## Cheese-lovers (Feb 10, 2006)

Wow thanks for your ideas guys. They sound really great. Our pannacotta however is not just vanilla pannacotta it has a layer at the top (when turned out of the cup) that is jelly which is berry flavoured so the whole thing is not just vanilla. 

The sauce as well has not been decided on we have to come up with our own sauces of whatever we want to put on it. I love the idea of a sprig of mint on top. Also we were thinking what about those scrolls of chocolate you can make? If you dont understand what i mean im talking about how you scrape chocolate with a vege peeler and it sort of scrolls up.

Also what about toffee lace? is that appropriate for pannacotta?

Please tell us what you think.

Kim & Krysten


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## Haggis (Feb 10, 2006)

A peeler will make chocolate curls, however the chocolate must be warmed to room temperature before you do so.

If you really want it to look fantastic see if you can get a hold of some persian/turkish fairy floss (what you guys call cotton candy) its absolutely amazing stuff.

You could also serve the panna cotta on top of a 2-3 savoiardi biscuits (ladyfingers/spongefingers) that have been dipped in perhaps some of the berry juice to soften them, or some type of liqueur if you really want to jazz things up a bit.


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## grumblebee (Feb 10, 2006)

There is no chocolate in the pannacotta or sauce, so I think chocolate curls would just complicate things and confuse the tasters palate. 

I would stick to things that reflect what is in the pannacotta/sauce. Simple garnish ideas would be 1-2 whole vanilla beans, crisscrossed over the dish, or a sprinkling of berries on the plate.


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## Chopstix (Feb 11, 2006)

I've served panna cotta in martini glasses.  The panna cotta has to set in those glasses though.  After it's set, you can smooth your jelly layer on top.  Maybe garnish with something that will provide some height.  Once I served kaffir lime leaf & coconut pannacotta then stuck a 7-inch long blade of pandanus leaf into one side of the pannacotta, so that the leaf gracefully bent in an arc.  The guests were impressed


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## cc2003btw (Feb 13, 2006)

Get about a punnet of mixed berries, blitz them in a food processor then strain through a sieve or some muslin. Then put a little vanilla extract into this, about a teaspoon. When i say vanilla extract, i mean the good stuff, get it from Lakeland Limited, not that artificial crap. Mix that in whatever you strained the berries into and thats that. You should have a lovely sauce/coulis that you can now put on the bottom of your bowl/plate. Use the back of a spoon and flatten the sauce out from the middle. Place the pannacotta onto this, then drizzle a little of the sauce on top. 
Hope that helps.


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## Cheese-lovers (Feb 14, 2006)

Oh thankyou sooooooo much. We scrapped our original ideas and decided to use a sauce instead of chocolate. We thought of using a berry sauce as well to go with the berry jelly on top but werent sure what to put in it. We decided to check on here for replys first and then look for a recipe but it was like you read our minds because you gave us a recipe! Now we dont have to search for them any more.

Our presentation day is tomorrow so when they are done we will take photos and post them to show you what we did. 

Thanks for all your help guys and gals!

luv Kim & Krysten


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## cc2003btw (Feb 15, 2006)

Glad to be of assistance, good luck. 

( I assume you're in the UK because you said year 12, so good luck with your A levels!)


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## Cheese-lovers (Feb 16, 2006)

cc2003btw said:
			
		

> ( I assume you're in the UK because you said year 12, so good luck with your A levels!)


 
No we are in Australia. Here are the pictures of our finished desserts

The first two photos (pictures 48 & 49) are of Krystens dessert and the second two (50 & 51) are of my dessert. 

Unfortunately we had a couple of problems like getting them out of their moulds and melting the chocolate. The ones we prepared and served though turned out well. Thankyou again everyone for our help. 

We also have another post about traditional recipes so if you can help again that would be great


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## grumblebee (Feb 16, 2006)

Those look great! 

What is the stuff piled in the corner of the plate in the last 2 pics? Its hard to tell from the pics...


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## Cheese-lovers (Feb 16, 2006)

Oh by the way thankyou cc2003btw for your sauce idea. We used it on our panna cotta and the teacher said it was great

The 'stuff' in the corner is grated chocolate


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## Haggis (Feb 16, 2006)

Very nice Cheese-Lovers, very nice indeed.


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## jkath (Feb 16, 2006)

Your photos are lovely! What an impressive pair you are!
If only you could ship those delightful goodies to all of us!

Please keep us posted on your cooking class - as you've seen, there's always someone here to help.


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## Cheese-lovers (Feb 17, 2006)

Thanks.  If you wanna help some more weve got another thread going called Old?Traditional Recipes and we would really like any old or Traditional Recipes youve got 

luv Kim & Krysten


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## cc2003btw (Feb 21, 2006)

Cheese-lovers said:
			
		

> Oh by the way thankyou cc2003btw for your sauce idea. We used it on our panna cotta and the teacher said it was great
> 
> The 'stuff' in the corner is grated chocolate




No problems, glad to help out. Did you use any vanilla or just the coulis?


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## Cheese-lovers (Feb 21, 2006)

we used vanilla


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## mish (Feb 23, 2006)

Didn't read thru all the replys, but the finished dish looks lovely.  Another thought for the future, perhaps - (was going to say a raspberry sauce surrounded by mixed berries - blue and raspberry - but sure it was mentioned) -- perhaps scoops of raspberry granita served on the plate or on the side in a martini glass. Prepare the panna cotta in a heart-shaped mold.

BTW, Welcome to DC


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