Panna Cotta with Caramel Sauce

Making the panna cotta spanned two days because of the long time that the panna cotta requires to set. We made vanilla panna cotta on the first day.

We began by oiling four ramekins for later use, then bloomed gelatin in milk for about five minutes, until the surface of the milk became wrinkled and all of the gelatin grains looked wet.

The bloomed gelatin – wrinkles most visible top left of pan

We then began to dissolve the gelatin over low heat, whisking frequently and keeping the milk from simmering or boiling. After about two minutes, we checked to see that all the gelatin had dissolved by rubbing it between our fingers to check the texture and by dipping a spoon in the milk and checking the back for grains of gelatin.

Checking for undissolved gelatin grains

We then added sugar to the milk and stirred until it was dissolved. Once the sugar dissolved, we removed the pot from the heat and added cream, vanilla, and salt. We divided the panna cotta into the four ramekins and refrigerated it overnight.

Panna cotta portioned and ready to go into the fridge.

The next day, we made the caramel sauce and decorations. We began the caramel sauce by melting together butter and cream, then set aside the mixture.

Pouring the cream and butter mixture to set aside

After cleaning the saucepan, we mixed sugar and water, stirring until it formed a thick, grainy paste.

The sugar coated in water to form a paste

We then heated the sugar water mixture without stirring. First, the water boiled off. Then, at around 250°F, the syrup became transparent and began to boil rapidly. At 320°F, the syrup began to darken and become caramel. We tried to let ours get to brown without becoming so dark that it was bitter.

The sugar boiling

We then added the cream and butter after microwaving it briefly to ensure it was hot, then added salt. We poured the caramel sauce into a glass bowl to cool until it was just above room temperature. In the meantime, we made caramel covered hazelnuts.

We began by roasting the hazelnuts in the oven, then inserted a toothpick into each one to prepare them for dipping in the caramel. We repeated the process to make caramel, this time with far less sugar and water, and without adding cream at the end.

Sugar boiling at 250°F

As soon as our caramel was brown in the middle, we removed it from the heat, though the edges were still clear. This ended up working out well because the caramel continued to brown even off the heat, but did not get too bitter. We then dipped each hazelnut in the caramel and hung them over the edge of the sink so that the excess caramel would drip off to the side. As it cooled, the drips hardened, creating spikes.

As we waited for our hazelnuts to cool and harden, we plated the panna cotta. To get it out of the ramekins smoothly, we released the edges with a knife, then held the ramekin in warm water for a few seconds before inverting the ramekin on the plate.

All of our panna cotta came out of the ramekins fairly smoothly and easily

We spooned the now room temperature caramel sauce onto the panna cotta and topped with a hazelnut.

Spooning out the caramel sauce

The finished product

Close up of the creamy texture of the panna cotta

• Why is the darker caramel less sweet?

In caramelization, sucrose is broken down into glucose and fructose, which are oxidized into caramelan, caramelen, and caramelin. This oxidation is what makes caramel brown and changes the flavor. The longer the reaction continues, the more bitter and caramel-flavored molecules are created, and the less sugar remains. This means that as the caramel gets more brown it gets less sweet.

• At what temperature did you see caramelization chemistry occurring? How did you know?

Our caramel started to brown at just about 320°F, showing that this is when the caramelization chemistry occured. It wasn’t entirely uniform, browning in the center first, presumably because the pot was hotter in the center than at the edges.