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Photo by Geoff Peters
Panna cotta is a smooth, creamy Italian custard-type dessert that literally translates as “cooked cream” in English, which to me sounds as charming as a boiled onion. Thanks English. This fine dessert is traditionally made with sugar, vanilla, cream, and gelatin as it’s binding and gelling agent.
If you’re trying to reduce your consumption of animal products, you might consider avoiding the typical gelatin as it’s made from collagen that’s been extracted from by-products of the meat industry. That’s right friends, Jell-o is actually wiggly, jiggly, colourful blobs of animal.
Luckily, there a few great plant-based gelling agents such as agar agar, derived from the cell walls of a red algae. Agar agar sets faster and at a higher temperature than animal gelatin, which translates to me as less waiting time ‘till dessert. Fancy, big box health food markets will carry it, but I recommend you look it at Asian food markets first, it’s way cheaper as it’s commonly used in Thai and Vietnamese sweets.
Here’s my take on a vanilla bean vegan panna cotta, while not true to its Italian heritage of using cream, it’s still kick-ass awesome and kinder to your ol’ belly.
Click here for printable, PDF copy of the recipe.
