This chocolate panna cotta is lightly sweet and rich. A wonderful ending to a meal any time of year, chilled desserts are especially nice in the summertime. Enjoy garnished with creme Anglaise, ganache, berries or berry sauce, or some shaved chocolate.
Stir the gelatin into 1/4 cup cold milk and let sit for 10 minutes.
Heat the rest of the milk, the sugar, and salt together in a small saucepan until steaming but not boiling.
Off the heat, stir in the chopped chocolate and vanilla.
If the chocolate does not melt all the way and the mixture looks like it has tiny specks of chocolate in it as opposed to a uniform "brown" look, heat over medium low heat, stirring constantly, unitl the chocolate is completely melted.
Stir the bloomed gelatin/milk into the hot chocolate mixture and mix well. Check to make sure it's not grainy. If it is, barely heat and whisk again. You want to make sure the mixture is smooth so the gelatin can set up well and so your panna cotta is not grainy.
Strain the chocolate mixture into a bowl and whisk in 1/2 cup of the heavy cream.
Chill until just starting to set and then whisk it well.
Softly whip the other 1/2 cup of cream just until thickened. It does not need to reach even soft peaks.
Fold/stir into the chocolate/gelatin mixture and pour into containers.
Chill until set, or freeze.
Allow to thaw before serving. See Notes.
Notes
TO UNMOLD: The easiest way to unmold these for serving is to pour the mixture into silicone baking cups or 4 oz plastic "souffle cups." Then you can freeze them. Before serving, pop them out of the silicone or use scissors to cut the souffle cups and then peel them away. Place on serving plates, top-side down and let sit until no longer icy. Then garnish as desired and serve.STORAGE: The panna cottas will be just fine in the fridge for 3-4 days. You can freeze them for up to 2 months.GARNISH: Serve these with chocolate sauce, creme Anglaise, berry sauce or fresh berries, whipped cream, shaved chocolate, caramel sauce, peanut butter sauce, etc. Anything that goes nicely with chocolate would make a great accompaniment.VARIATIONS:
Mocha: add 1-2 teaspoons instant coffee or 1 teaspoon espresso powder to the mix
Mint: add 2-3 drops peppermint oil or maybe 1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract to the mix
Chocolate Orange: Add the zest of 1 orange in step 2 and let steep for 30 minutes before continuing. Alternatively, add 2-3 drops of orange oil along with the chocolate