Stracciatella Panna Cotta

This Stracciatella Panna Cotta is a combination of two of my favorite Italian desserts: stracciatella ice cream and panna cotta. This dessert is easy to make as your fridge does most of the work for you. I’m sharing the recipe for 2 people below, but you can easily multiply it if you’re making this Straciatella Panna Cotta for more people.

You probably know Stracciatella as the ice cream flavor which is vanilla gelato with chunks of chocolate inside. It comes from the North of Italy and was invented in the 1960’s. Did you know that the name Stracciatella actually comes from a soup? Stracciatella is an Italian soup that was mostly popular in Rome. The stracciatella soup consists of eggs and broth, and just like with the ice cream you have to stir something in to get little shreds. The name Stracciatella means ‘little shreds’. In the case of the ice cream it’s little shreds of chocolate.
By the way, do you also have difficulties spelling the word? I often write ‘straciatella’ with only 1 C. But it’s spelled with two c’s and two l’s: stracciatella.

It’s not that strange to combine stracciatella with panna cotta as both were invented in the same area around the same time. Panna Cotta also originated in Northern Italy around the 1960’s.
The basic recipe of Panna Cotta is warming cream and sugar. Put gelatin in cold water and add to the cream mixture. Let this mixture set in the fridge. You can add all kinds of flavors to the Panna Cotta itself like coffee or fruits, and you can serve the basic Panna Cotta with all kinds of sauces like chocolate or strawberry sauce.
I made a stracciatella version of the basic Panna Cotta by adding chocolate flakes to the Panna Cotta itself and I topped it with extra chocolate flakes before serving.
Please note that this recipe includes gelatin and that some vegetarians or don’t eat gelatin.

Recipe Stracciatella Panna Cotta

Ingredients (for 4 servings):
500 ml fresh cream
50 grams sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
4 gelatin sheets
80 grams chocolate (milk or dark)

Put the cream and vanilla essence in a sauce pan and warm on medium-heat. Warm for about 15 minutes, keep it close to boiling. Add the sugar, stir until dissolved. Take the pan of the fire.
Put the gelatin sheets in cold water for a few minutes. Lift them out, wring the excess water off and add the sheets to the cream mixture. Stir to mix.
Chop the chocolate. Stir half of the chocolate in the panna cotta mixture. Divide over 4 cups and put in the fridge to set for at least 4 hours.

Before serving, quickly put the cups in warm water so the Panna Cotta will come out easier (you might need to cut the edges with a knife to seperate it from the cup). Put the cups upside down on plates so that your panna cotta stays on the plate. Divide the remaining chocolate over the stracciatella panna cotta.