Daring Baker Feb 2011: Panna Cotta & Florentine Cookies

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.

For my second Daring Baker challenge the main recipe was dairy based - generally easier to veganize than the egg whites from last month, but once again I was slightly stumped, having never had to replace heavy cream in a recipe before. And although I've not had to replace gelatin in a recipe yet, I still had the bar agar-agar and the xanthan gum from the last DB challenge experiments.

One of the other alternate bakers posted a vegan version of Panna Cotta, and looking at the substitutions, it looked like something that I could have eventually come to, and looked like it would be more of a success than I could achieve by trial and error. For the milk, I substituted a mix of coconut milk and vanilla soy milk, and for the heavy cream, we used (firm) silken tofu.

Since the dessert was in two parts, and we generally get together to bake on a week night after work, we decided to split the two recipes over two consecutive nights. Allyson joined me the first night, when we made the Panna Cotta, which had to set for at least 6 hours before eating, and then Lila joined us the following night for making the Florentine cookies.

WEDNESDAY:

We mixed the coconut and soy milk and sugar over heat.

 Next we blended the firm silken tofu and the vanilla in the food processor.

Then wisked both together and filled the glasses, moving them into the refrigerator to set. I didn't do a very good job of cleaning the edges after ladling in the Panna Cotta, and I was surprised at the lack of actual yield. We filled 3 glasses just over half full, and I had hoped to save some for the top of our gelée layer, but it was quickly clear that there just wasn't enough.

Milk and tofu combined. Our Panna Cotta.

Three Panna Cotta in the glasses.

Blueberries in sugar 1.

Blueberries in sugar 2

Sugar has disolved

Added water and agar combo.

Getting mushy.

Our gelee.

While the Panna Cotta cooled, we moved on to make a fruit gelée – we chose blueberries. The first step was to mix the fruit with sugar over heat. At first we were discouraged because it didn't really seem to be doing anything. While Allyson kept stirring the berries, I measured out the agar-agar (which I had flaked myself from the bar, not having flakes on hand) and added that to water.

The amount of water to agar seemed too low, so I added more water.

Agar-agar flakes in water.

When the berries finally started macerating correctly, and the sugar was all but invisible, we added the water and agar-agar mix to the blueberries, and stirred. It took a while for the agar to dissolve, but it finally did. We then put the mix in the fridge to cool, and finally, when it was not hot (parts were still warm, but Allyson had to go home, so we forged ahead anyway) we added the berry gelée to the top of the panna cotta, and put them back in the fridge to wait until the next day.

Panna Cotta with Gelee

THURSDAY

The recipe for the Florentine cookies was easy to veganize, substituting earth balance non-dairy butter and soy milk. For the chocolate filling we used a mix of non-dairy dark chocolate (from a bar) and non-dairy semi-sweet chocolate chips.

These cookies reminded me very much of the oatmeal cookies that Alison and Lila tried to make in an earlier baking attempt, but apparently these cookies were supposed to spread and end up thin. We had a slight problem with getting the right size for the cookies, but we finally got the hang of it.

Our first batch going on the cookie sheet.

First batch - way to wide. These guys spread a lot.

Smaller second batch.

More reasonable size.

The cookies ended up being very lacy, and when we tried to add chocolate to them, to make sandwiches, we ran into a problem. We gave up on that, and settled for non-chocolated cookies. We did get one batch right out of the oven that we managed to roll (out long enough to not burn our fingers- much, but still warm enough to be pliable). These we dipped into the melted chocolate later. I didn't get a good picture of these, unfortunately.

Adding chocolate.

Correction, making a mess with chocolate.
 

Rolled cookies

After too many batches of cookies (very frustrating to only be able to bake them 6 at a time, even when working with two cookie sheets, and they bake for 6-8 minutes. I felt like I was at it forever) we finally settled in for our taste test.

VERDICT:

Consensus on the cookies was that they reminded us of granola bars- especially those first messy attempts to add chocolate to them. Later tasting proved that if you are going to store them, make sure to put wax paper between the cookies, and they get very crisp when they've had a chance to really cool.

The Panna Cotta was interesting. The blueberry geléegelée to Panna Cotta, or if we should have blended/ smashed the berries rather than using them whole. In any case, I wasn't a great fan of the results.

The Panna Cotta itself was a nice texture, and I was surprised to find the coconut flavor wasn't as strong as I expected. Overall the dessert was pretty thick, and we each only ended up eating half. If we make this again, it will definitely be in smaller glasses.


New tools/ ingredients:  coconut milk ; agar-agar flakes; cookie scoop, dark corn syrup, 
Recipes used: Vegan Panna Cotta from DB alternate baker forum; Fruit Gelée and Nestle Florentine Cookie from DB challenge
Co-bakers: Lila, Allyson
Date: Feb. 23 and 24, 2011