Day 103: Coconut and cardamom pannacotta

Uh-oh. This did not work out well. At all. Not only did I make the Coconut and cardamon pannacotta once, but twice. Worse still, both times were a disaster. Along with meringues, I can now add ‘working with gelatine’ as the no.2 item on the list of cooking tasks which I cannot do properly. I was really keen to make this recipe as it said it would only take 10 minutes of preparation and 5 minutes of cooking but that plan didn't exactly work out. So, here’s what happened…

The first time I made this recipe, I ground cardamom seeds using a pestle and mortar and then added them to a saucepan of cream and sugar. I brought the mixture up to the boil and then let it simmer before setting aside to infuse. Next was the gelatine. Oh, how I now hate working with this stuff! I used leaf gelatine so I placed the leaves in a bowl with cold water to cover and set it aside for 5 minutes until the gelatine became very soft. Well, that’s what the recipe said at least. In a large bowl, I gave a can of coconut milk a whisk (obviously having taken it out of the can!) and then put the cream mixture on to heat again. I added the gelatine into the coconut milk and mixed before putting it through a sieve into the cream mixture. I gave it a stir and divided it into four glasses.

The second time I made the recipe, I did the same as above except I used powdered gelatine. The recipe said to cover the powder with water and leave it in the fridge for 3-4 minutes. After that, I had to add it to the coconut milk (same as above) and carry on with the recipe as above.

On both occasions, I let the desserts chill in the fridge over night and then topped them with slices of mango. Oh, I forgot to say that on both occasions, once I added the mango slices, by the time I went to take the photo, the mango slices had sunk so what you don't see is the actual stack of mango slices underneath the creamy mixture that were necessary in order to get a few to sit on top for the photo!

 

The verdicts…

On both occasions, neither attempts made the dessert set properly.  They both ended up just like glasses of cream. On my second attempt using the powdered gelatine, I thought I’d surely get it right that time round but obviously I was wrong. Dear Husband’s words were that I had now made him the worst dessert he had ever tasted. I got a very embarrassing 1 mark out of 10 - simply for effort. He said that it reminded him of the pink medicine that he got as a child – I think he meant those pink antibiotics that were dispensed in white plastic bottles. Eugh!

Overall, the recipe in one word - disaster. Do you really need me to tell you that this dessert has most definitely not made The List?! Well, if so, it hasn’t. Unless of course someone somewhere can impart some knowledge as to where, how and when I went wrong. Until then, I not even going to attempt this recipe again. So much to learn, so much to learn…