This week's recipe for Tuesday's with Dorie is Vanilla-Mango Panna Cotta. I didn't think anyone in our house would eat mango (or so they told me) so we chose to make ours with banana instead of mango. At first I wasn't even going to try this recipe because of the mango, but when I saw the photo in the book and how pretty it was I decided we had to give it a try, I would just substitute out banana puree for the mango. One of the reasons I am baking along every week is so I will try recipes I normally wouldn't, so skipping this would defeat the purpose. (I do have to admit I skipped the fruit tart last week because I didn't think any of us would eat it either and I was really busy.)
The photo of the panna cotta in Dorie's book is beautiful. The panna cotta is a lovely bright white with the bright yellow-orange mango below. Mine did not look anything like this when we were done. Of course the banana was more a yellowish-brown, which I expected. But, our panna cotta was not nearly as white. That may have been because the banana broke apart and blended with the panna cotta a bit when it was poured in. I froze the banana puree first and it was nice and firm, maybe I didn't cool the panna cotta mixture enough before pouring it over. I also used wine glasses that were larger than those shown in the recipe. Oh well.
Although this was a fun recipe to try and a nice way to spend a hot afternoon, it was not a winner in my house. My husband took one bite and walked away. My daughter took a few bites and declared it unappealing. I really tried to like it, after a few bites I couldn't eat any more. I think we made it correctly, I just think that we are not fans of panna cotta in my house. I am glad we tried it though. It really has been fun to try things we wouldn't normally have tried. We have already found some recipes we really like that we never would have tried before.
If you would like to try this recipe it can be found on page 370 of Dorie Greenspan's book Baking Chez Moi.
