Daring Bakers – White Chocolate “Panna Cotta” and Florentine Cookies

What began as a challenge to make panna cotta turned into a lazy attempt to make pudding seem like panna cotta.  With no gelatin or any substance of the kind to be found in the house, I was forced to resort to good ol’ cornstarch.  Which meant I was making pudding.  Not panna cotta.  Woops.

Regardless, it made for a fruity, sweet, creamy, and relatively firm pudding, albeit with a few lumps dispersed here and there (I told you it was a lazy attempt).  Thankfully, I was feeding this lumpy pudding to my best friends.  Best friends will still love you even if you give them lumpy pudding.

The Florentine cookies were the perfect accompaniment to the pudding.  As I was melting the butter to make the cookies, I figured, why not brown it?  My philosophy is, if a recipe calls for melted butter, you might as well brown it for that extra layer of flavor.  The nuttiness of the browned butter matched the oats wondrously and what resulted was a sweet, crispy, slightly nutty, buttery cookies sandwiched with a layer of bittersweet chocolate (I love how something sweet, like bittersweet chocolate, can cut the sweetness of something even sweeter, like a Florentine cookie).

Panna cotta or pudding, lumps or not, browned butter or not, I can check another delicious daring bakers challenge off the list.  Thank you Mallory of A Sofa in the Kitchen!

White Chocolate “Panna Cotta” – but actually pudding

Ingredients

• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3.5 ounces good quality white chocolate, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch (mixed into 1/4 cup of the milk and set aside)

Preparation

1. Combine all ingredients except for the cornstarch mixture in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat.
2. Heat until the chocolate melts and reduce the heat to medium.
3. Whisk in the cornstarch mixture, whisking constantly until the mixture thickens.
4. Pour pudding into four ramekins or other serving glasses of your choice.
5. Cover and chill overnight.

Florentine Cookies

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup butter
• 2 cups quick oats
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup light or dark corn syrup
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 3/4 cups chocolate chips or 11.5 ounces chopped bittersweet chocolate

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 375.  Line two baking sheets.
2. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat, continue stirring over medium heat until the butter browns and the milk solids separate (about 10 minutes).
3. Remove from heat and stir in oats, sugar, flour, corn syrup, vanilla extract, and salt.
4. Drop by level teaspoons, about 3 inches apart onto lined baking sheets.
5. Bake 5 to 7 minutes until medium brown.
6. Let cool completely on baking sheets and then transfer to a wire rack to cool.
7. Melt the chocolate in a microwave safe bowl, stopping every 30 seconds or so to stir so that the chocolate doesn’t burn.
8. Spread the chocolate on one cookie half and then sandwich together with another cookie.

Daring Bakers: Petit Fours

I am beginning to think that these daring bakers challenges are never going to go smoothly for me.  Which is completely fine with me.  After all, that’s why they call it a challenge, right?  And I love a challenge, as long as I get a reward.  And I most definitely did get rewarded this time, in the form of delicious little square of goodness composed of homemade vanilla ice cream sandwiched between two layers of brown butter cake and enrobed in a chocolate ganache.

Despite the first brown butter cake not completely cooking through in the center and then deciding to jump out of its pan and onto the floor, despite getting chocolate all over the counters, floor, and cabinets as I was desperately trying to coat the squares of cake and melting ice cream before they completely fell apart, I considered this a successful challenge.  My chocolate coating leaves a something to be desired, but taste-wise, you really can’t go wrong with chocolate.  Or brown brown butter cake or vanilla ice cream for that matter.  Thank you Elissa of 17 and baking, for yet another challenging but delightful challenge!  (you can check out her blog if you want the recipe)

Pronunciation and Butter

For the longest time, I could not figure out how to pronounce the word gnocchi.  Gnochi? Nochi? Ynochi?  I’m proud to say, I can not only say it correctly, but I can also cook them.  This isn’t a huge triumph though, considering they are so easy to make.

So far I have made two variation: pumpkin gnocchi with spinach and brown butter sauce and sweet potato gnocchi with asparagus with brown butter sauce.

This recipe is extremely flexible. You can choose any type of gnocchi or vegetable you prefer.  And of course the fresher the gnocchi, the more delicious it will be.

Ingredients

• fresh gnocchi (about .5 lb per person, but if you’re adding vegetables I would buy a little less)
• 5 T unsalted butter
• 3 T chopped fresh sage
• 1/4 cup low sodium chicken stock
• salt and pepper
• vegetable of choice

Steps

1. Cook the gnocchi according to the package direction or about 4-5 minutes if fresh.*
2. Drain and rinse under cool water.  Set aside.
3. Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat until browned, about 5 minutes.
4. Add sage, and then stock  Lower heat to medium low and simmer for three minutes until slightly thickened.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.
5. Add the gnocchi. *
6. Fry until the gnocchi form a crispy golden brown crust and the vegetable are cooked to your desire.
7. Serve!

*The steps depend on what kind of vegetable you are cooking.  Spinach for example, would have to be added at the very end.  Asparagus on the other hand, I threw into the pot of cooking gnocchi for the last minute, and then added them to the skillet with the gnocchi to make sure it would cook through.  So just use your best judgement.