Hi TM, I'm happy to hear I was able to give you some ideas for pursuing your memory of the perfect panna cotta. I hope it's able to live up to your expectations!

Every single panna cotta I've had since then - no matter how fine the restaurant - has been just a bit too much on the "rubbery" side in comparison. So I will be trying this - probably with sheep's milk and cream - and hoping for the best.

But I feel certain this will be the closest to the sublime version I had in Italy - thank you!

Hi Leticia, I'm happy to hear you enjoyed this! Great call using premade caramel to speed things up. It might be a little difficult to incorporate melted chocolate into the custard, but you could add a high quality Dutch-processed cocoa powder. I also have a chocolate pudding recipe that uses a different process but is also very good: https://norecipes.com/best-chocolate-pudding/

I love this recipe with egg whites, it's actually very Keto friendly. Never Gelatin
I would love to see how using dark chocolate will keep the custard texture and
be just as decadent. I'm wondering if the other ingredients would have to be
adjusted.

Ps: I put a single wrapped soft caramel on the bottom of the ramekin.

Hi Sammy, I'm sorry to hear you're having troubles with this. I could questions 1) Are you measuring out the egg yolks using a US 2/3 cup (eggs are various size so going by the number of eggs won't always work)? 2) After baking for 30-40 minutes, are you checking that the internal temperature of the custard has reached 163°F(73°C)? The thermostat on most ovens is off so it's possible your oven either needs to be set higher or the panna cotta needs to be cooked for more time.

I've made this panna cotta recipe 4 times, and while it tastes great, it has never fully set. Even after leaving it in the fridge for 24 hours, it does not set. I bake it for around 40 minutes, could it be that I need to bake it longer? I follow all the steps exactly as written.

Hi Shantanu, that's a good question. I've never tried it, but most recipes for seem to call for setting the circulator for between 175-179F and cooking it for an hour. Using sous vide for custards always seemed like more work than it was worth so I usually just use a double boiler in an oven.

Thank you for sharing this recipe. I want to use sous vide for the cooking the panna cotta instead of the oven. What temperature do you recommend I set on the immersion circulator? I am guessing 163F (73C) since that's the temperature in your instructions. How much time would you recommend?

Thank you.

Wow thanks for sharing all of your variations Liz, they sound amazing! If you want to make a creamy custard with more acid (i.e. raspberries, passionfruit, lemon, etc) check out this recipe: https://norecipes.com/yuzu-posset-recipe/ It's how I make the custard for my keylime pie as well.

I love this recipe, and I've made it a few different ways. It is endlessly versatile. I made a baileys panna cotta by substituting 1/3 of a cup of baileys for 1/3 of a cup of cream. I poured salted caramel sauce (different recipe) into the bottom of small, clear jars and put them in the freezer for around 1 hour first, so that when poured the panna cotta mixture on top the caramel sauce would remain intact. They were BEAUTIFUL. Then I turned the same mixture into mango-coconut tarts by substituting half of the cream with a mixture of coconut milk and coconut cream (staying above 33% fat). I removed 3 tbsp of the cream mixture before adding the eggs and substituted back in 3 tbsp of pureed fresh mango and the mixture didn't curdle and was absolutely delicious. I poured this into a pre-baked hazelnut flour tart crust to bake and served topped with fresh mango and coconut flakes. What I've personally found with this recipe is that if you keep the fat at/above about 33%, maintain the ratios and are careful not to add too much acid (I only added 3 tbsp of mango puree but I'd be careful about adding say, berries...) you can use it for practically anything. Amazing!