Happy New Year with Salted Caramel – Vanilla Panna Cotta
Let me start by wishing everyone a wonderful and delicious 2012!
Time flies doesn’t it? 2011 has come and gone, but what a year it has been! A year of changes, discoveries and I would even say revelations.
Many things to be grateful for, but the biggest thanks is to all the readers who take a minute to visit and leave a word or two! You’ve been a drive and inspiration throughout this year!
Now, I know most people usually start New Year with resolutions that may include points such as active gym memberships or cutting down sugars, so I do feel slightly naughty for starting the year with a fairly sweet thing, but I tend to believe it’s good to sweeten life a bit, especially to kick off the year.
This panna cotta brings the sweet – salty caramel touch, little bit of crunch from the vanilla seeds and a tang of chocolaty goodness! Happy New Year!
- 100 grams white sugar
- 1 vanilla pods
- 2 gelatine
- 500 ml cream
- pinch of fleur de sel (or any other sea salt)
- Chocolate sauce
- 15 g dark chocolate
- 3 tablespoons cream
- Split the vanilla pod, scrape the seeds out and add to sugar together with the remaining pod.
- Pour the sugar into a heavy based saucepan and heat on medium heat until turns to dark amber caramel. Do not stir, but if lumps start forming swirl the pan around and turn down the heat a little.
- Soak the gelatin leaves in ice-cold water for 5 minutes.
- Stir in the cream into the caramel. Pour in very carefully as the caramel may spit and burn.
- Add fleur de sel and stir in the gelatin leaves.
- Pass the panna cotta mixture through a sieve and pour into the martini glasses or any other serving dish.
- Leave to cool in room temperature for one hour, then transfer to the fridge to set for another 3-4 hours.
- Melt the chocolate in a heat proof bowl over simmering water and stir in the cream, leave to cool for couple of minutes then drizzle over panna cotta, serve and dig in!
Happy New Year, Gourmantine! This panna cotta looks gorgeous. I love salted caramel (I even remember having a row with a chocolate maker in my city, who didn’t have salted caramel filled chocolates
)
Your photos are breath-taking!
I’m trying to stay away from all the sweet treats but this is just too much, I would eat that in a second. love the caramel touch. Happy New Year.
such gorgeous photos. What a splendid new years dessert. Everyone needs a touch of sweetness in 2012. Happy new year!
LOVE that you’re starting the year with something sweet
Happy New Year to you tooooooooo! 
wow this is fantastic! Salted caramel is such a weakness of mine! Happy New Year!
Happy New Year!
Those are divine looking panna cotta!
Cheers,
Rosa
Thoroughly enjoyed this post and the BEAUTIFUL photos here. Speaking of which… the wedding photos you tagged onto the end of your previous post were nothing short of breathtaking. (So is your Visual Index tab!) Love and food intertwined — does it get any better than this? Happy New Year to you, too!
Thanks so much Kimby! I agree, that love and food go hand in hand
As for the wedding photos, I bow my head deeply for the talented photographer who took them 
The year as well as the recent holidays went by way too fast! This panna cotta has an awesome flavor mix and it is a great way to start the new year.
Your pictures definitely do this dessert some justice, elegant and enticing-well done.
Oh, that looks delightful!
Happy 2012
Happy New Year Gourmantine! That’s an incredible photo, I have to say. Very “punchy”. Wonderful photos for a wonderful looking dish
Happy New Year! This panna cotta looks delicious, love the chocolate with the salted caramel…and the pictures are awesome!
Happy New Year to you as well! I love panna cotta and it is so easy to make but your results are superb. Thank you for the condolences.
What a wonderful looking dessert. The pictures are just fantastic. Come visit. We have some delicious recipes this week.
Beautiful photos! This looks absolutely divine!
Happy New Year!
What a gorgeous post to start 2012 and I look forward to your coming posts! This is a lovely and delicious dessert.
Happy New Year!! I think everyone should start off their year with something sweet! Your panna cotta looks wonderfully delicious!
These look absolutely delicious!
Chocolate and cream together….sounds delicious. The texture of these looks just perfect.
Thank you so much for sharing! This panna cotta is amazing and I’ve been inspired to feature it in my Friday Food Fetish roundup. If you have any objections, please let me know. Moar, moar, MOAR please
Thanks Javelin, I can say that I have absolutely no objections at all
dont you need water with the sugar at the start of the recipe?
This recipe uses sugar only to make caramel, hence no water is needed. Adding the water would probably thin the caramel a bit, so I prefer this method in desserts as panna cotta or any caramel sauces. Hope it helps
IT WAS AMAZING!!! such a good recipe. I did the panna cotta with a chilli chocolate sauce at the end of a thai dinner. So good!
I’m so happy you’ve liked it! Thanks do much for letting me know
the chilli addition to the chocolate sauce sounds like a fabulous idea!