Vegan Coffee Panna Cotta

Its vacation time for my son and we are in Bangalore. No early morning alarms that shake you out of your sleep, no cooking for the lunch box, no crazy Ahmedabad heat...just plain lazing around, meeting friends and cousins and checking out the new restaurants in Bangalore over the next few weeks.

Remember this post on Grape and raisin focaccia that I had posted last month as part of the Groovy Gourmets ? This time around, we had to make panna cotta. I had tried making panna cotta maybe a couple of years back. It was the first time and a huge hit. The next few times the gelatin really let me down.



I've always been fascinated with desserts set in a jar and I found this one, which is actually a candle holder in Ma's collection, so I used that as a mould for the panna cotta. I set the rest in some ramekins. Its always nice to serve this as individual servings, in little ramekins.

Panna cotta is an Italian dessert with milk, cream, sugar and some flavours set with gelatin.
My mother is lactose intolerant and anything with milk and cream is a big no-no. She loves coffee and so I decided on a coffee flavoured dairy-free panna cotta. I was very apprehensive how this would turn out since it was my first time with a no cream panna cotta. I used soy milk and coconut milk and also substituted the gelatin with its vegetarian counter part agar agar. The agar agar set it beautifully and my panna cotta turned vegan !



The coffee flavour was mild and with no real cream, it made for a light dessert. I garnished it with some grated dark chocolate.


Vegan Coffee Panna cotta

What you need -

500 ml unflavoured soy milk
200 ml thick coconut milk
8 gm agar agar
1.5 tbsp instant coffee powder
3 tbsp sugar

What you do with it -

Pour out the soy milk and coconut milk in a pan and simmer it on a low flame
Add the sugar and stir it in well
Dissolve the coffee powder in two tbsp of the soy milk and then pout it into the pan
Soak the agar agar in water for at least 10 mins. This packet of agar agar was more like a little mat, which turned into strands when soaked
Rinse the water three times and strain the agar agar
Add this to the pan and mix well on a low flame till it dissolves completely
Turn off the heat
Strain and pour into moulds
Allow it to set in the refrigerator for at least 2-3 hours
Serve cold, garnished with some chocolate