Panna Cotta for February 2011's Daring Bakers challenge

I'm excited because this is my first chance to post on here, and is also my first daring bakers challenge. The daring kitchen is a website where you are challenged to make a new recipe each month. For the daring bakers challenge this month, we had to make panna cotta, and Florentine cookies. My inspiration for my version of this challenge came from valentines day. I love valentines day, although I was single this year, I made it a point to not change my view on the holiday, and start complaining about how its all some big corporate scam! Of course I didn't actually get around to doing this challenge until a couple days ago because I had finals going on at my stupid quarter system college, and I was way to busy having mental breakdowns. But that is not the point, the point is that some of the first things that come to my mind when I think of Valentines Day are strawberries and champagne(which of course go great together YUMM), and when I think of the month of February all I really think of is Valentines Day, so it was only logical to me that  I should make this challenge about something related to romance, and the delicious flavors that come with this holiday, because lets face it thats the only real reason why I love valentines day so much, is because it gives me a reason to make yummy baked goods, and get compliments from men! :) I decided to make a champagne flavored panna cotta with a strawberry gelee on top. As for the Florentine cookies(which are basically thin oatmeal cookies) I decided instead of spreading chocolate on them like what was shown on the challenge forum, that I would put strawberry pieces in them, and make them more chewy than crunchy. I think they turned out pretty well and compliment the panna cotta quite well.

Now if your worried about making panna cotta for the first time have no fear, it is a lot easier than one would think. Its all about following the directions. I made sure to take pictures of the process to show you how it is done.

Lets start with the champagne panna cotta

The Recipe:

• 3 cups heavy cream
• 1 1/2 cup champagne (I bought a relatively cheap brand because I couldn't rationalize/afford buying a $200 champagne for a dessert, even though I really wanted to mmmm Dom Perignon)
• 4 teaspoons of unflavored gelatin powder
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• a pinch of salt (I am a firm believer in not measuring salt)

place 1/2 cup of the champagne in a bowl(make sure you don't misread this and put the whole 1 1/2 cups in,) and sprinkle with the gelatin(4 teaspoons.) Make sure you just lightly sprinkle the gelatin over all the champagne, dont just pour it all in one spot or only one part of the champagne will gelatize(real word!)

Ok while you are letting that sit, and get solidified you should start heating up the cream. Put the 3 cups of cream, 2/3 cup of sugar, tablespoon of vanilla, and pinch of salt into a medium sized pot, and warm it all up on medium heat. Make sure that the sugar melts, but if the mixture starts to boil, stop.
Pour the gelatin/champagne mix into the warm cream mix and whisk until completely mixed together, and until you can no longer see any clumps of gelatin.

Let that cool for like five or so minutes, and then pour the other cup of champagne into a bowl, and slowly whisk in this cream mixture. Then your done, see I told you it would be easy. You just have to pour it into ramekins(small bowls,) or glasses of some kind, whatever you want really and then let it sit for at least 6 hours. Though I would wait around 24, then you can enjoy possibly one of the greatest custards ever! Yummy!
Keep in mind that if you are making this late at night(like a certain baker who only thinks to make her things after 9pm), and you make a mistake using the champagne, that all the liquor stores will be closed and you will have to wait until the next morning to make this delicious recipe. Trust me, I learned this the hard way.

Alright now that we've got the main part out of the way, we're going to make the strawberry gelee topping. This is also relatively simple to do.

What you will need:

• About a cup or more of strawberries, depending on how much gelee you want on top. I used a cup.
• 3 tablespoons of water
• 1 1/2 teaspoon of gelatin
• 1/4 cup of sugar

Place the 3 tablespoons of water into a bowl, and sprinkle the gelatin over it like we did previously, let that sit while you move onto the next step.

Put the strawberries in a food processor and mix until they are completely broken down. 

Then put them, plus the sugar into a pot, and heat until all the sugar melts in. Put the gelatin mixture into the pot, and keep cooking until the gelatin has dissolved.

 Let this cool to room temperature before putting it onto your panna cotta. The panna cotta should also be at least somewhat solid, so you should wait a while before making this so that the two don't intermix.

Last but not least, are the Florentine cookies. 

Ingredients:

• 2 cups quick oats
• 2/3 cup unsalted butter
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2/3 cup flour 
• 1/4 cup dark corn syrup
• 1/4 cup whole milk(although I used 2% because I forgot to pick up whole milk from the store)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract 
• A pinch of salt
• About a half cup of finely chopped strawberries(I didn't really measure this sorry)

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit 

Place a piece of parchment paper onto your baking sheet. 

Melt the butter in a medium sauce pan, then remove it from heat. Add oats, sugar, flour, corn syrup, milk, vanilla, and salt to the butter, and mix well. Then lightly mix in the strawberries.

I personally wanted my cookies to be more on the chewy side than on the crispy side, so I put down thicker globs of dough. Make sure though that you space them out well, because this dough likes to spread out. 

Bake in oven for 6-15 minutes, it really all depends on how thick you made the cookies. Just wait until the edges are golden.  Let them cool before you attempt to pick them up, they will fall apart. 

Alright so now you are all done. Do you feel awesome? Are you excited to eat really good food? The answer to both of these questions should be a definite yes! 

Please keep reading my blog, I like to pretend I have fans, and the views to my page make me feel better about myself. And for those of you who don't know much about cooking or baking, I hope my blog can help. It might be especially helpful for those of you who just moved into your new apartment, and have no idea how to make anything to read this(you know who you are.) Don't worry I will still give you private lessons later. ;) 

Come back next time faithful readers for another exiting tale of adventure, love, and above all things food!