Turning the favourite holiday drinks into desserts, how great is that! This Mulled Wine Panna Cotta recipe is incredibly easy to make, perfect for a lazy night in.
Panna Cotta is known to be an easy dessert for the Italians, and it is actually very easy! This mulled wine Panna cotta recipe is made up of two layers, the velvety coconut cream and the mulled wine jelly part. All you need is a pot, a strainer and the mould (I suggest using silicon mould). You can make it within under 10 minutes, leave it in the fridge and watch Netflix in the meantime.
The idea for this recipe is actually from the fact that I mulled too much wine and ended up not wanted to get drunk all winter long, so I made jelly out of it. However, this recipe will not include the part where you mulled the wine from scratches. So if you are looking to diy(ing) your mulled wine, you can check out this mulled wine recipe here.
So this recipe is vegan, but the reason is not for the hype. I love the recipe in its original form and it is good in that sense. Still, I don’t use heavy cream or gelatine in this recipe because I want it to be a comfort dessert for my belly. But please feel free to use what ever is easier to access for you; also what makes you feel good. For this recipe, coconut cream and agar agar are used as a substitute for heavy cream and gelatine in the traditional panna cotta.
What is Agar-Agar
If you are vegan, this might not be the first time to be hearing about Agar or Agar-Agar. Some people might refer it as a “veggie gelatine”. Although that is one way to look at it but the different between Agar and Gelatine are significant.
First of all, Agar is obtained from some species of red algae. The red algae are extracted and processed into powders (the most common form), flakes and sheets. If you thought you have never seen Agar before in your life, it is probably not true. Agar is most commonly used in the laboratory to as a cultivation and growing medium for bacteria, fungus and plant (yes, the clear gel you can find in biology class). Although Agar was long used as part of cooking in Asian cuisine for a long time.
While Agar is a 100% plant based, gelatine comes from collagen of mainly farm animals such as pig and cow. Gelatine is first discovered in Europe which is why many of the European traditional recipes use gelatine. Agar is later on used as substitutions for the tradition gelatine manly for ethical purpose. Still, Agar has a very little to non health concerns.
The major difference between Agar-Agar and Gelatine is the texture. Agar gives much firmer texture than gelatine, the texture is creamier with gelatine. This also makes agar more powerful than gelatine; you will definitely need to use much lesser agar in substitution with gelatine. There are few notes when it comes to cooking with agar:
- It has a higher boiling point than gelatine (85°C for agar and 35°C for gelatine) , which mean that agar mixture needs to be brought to boil in order to dissolve.
- For better results, agar should be dissolved in room temperature liquid before bringing it to boil to make sure there are no big lumps left, otherwise it will be almost impossible to dissolve the lumps.
Here is what you need to make this Mulled Wine Panna Cotta recipe:
- Coconut cream: You can use coconut milk (lower fat percentage) but the texture will be more silky and creamy with coconut cream.
- Mulled wine: mulled your own wine or buy the bottled mulled wine, both work just as great.
- Agar: while agar-agar is quite easy to find, vegan gel will give the closest texture to gelatine.
- Sugar: You can use other types of sweetener in this recipe such as syrup or honey, it doesn’t effect the result.
- Lemon: to get some more intense flavor to mulled wine layer, and otherwise it is not necessary.
- Extra spices: such as star anise, cinnamon and cloves; it works the same way with the lemon, to give extra flavor.
Hope you find this information useful! Thanks for reading. If you have tried out the recipe, snap the result on Instagram and let me know using #onehappyavo 🙂
Vegan Mulled Wine Panna Cotta | Easy Dessert
Course: DessertCuisine: ItalianDifficulty: Easy6
servings30
minutes10
minutes166
kcalTurning the favourite holiday drinks into desserts, how great is that! This Mulled Wine Panna Cotta recipe is incredibly easy to make, perfect for a lazy night in.
Ingredients
- Coconut Panna Cotta Layer
500 g of Coconut Cream
2 tsp Agar-agar
1 tbsp Vanilla Powder (1 pod)
2 tbsp Sugar
- Mulled Wine Jelly Layer
300 ml Mulled Wine
1 tbsp Sugar
3 tbsp Lemon Juice (1 Lemon)
1 tsp Agar-agar
Extra herbs such as star anise, cinnamon, cloves and lemon peel
Directions
- The Coconut Panna Cotta Layer
- Prepare the agar-agar: In a medium size bowl, add 100 ml of room temperature water with 2 tsp of agar-agar. Mix thoroughly until there is no lump of agar-agar left.
- Boil the coconut cream: In a pot, heat up the coconut cream on a medium heat just below the boiling point. Add sugar, vanilla and agar-agar mixture, stir to combine.
- Filter the coconut cream trough a strainer. Let the mixture cool down a liitle, then add to the mould. Cover and let it set for 10 minutes.
- The Mulled Wine Jelly Layer
- Prepare the agar-agar: In a medium size bowl, add 50 ml of room temperature water with 1 tsp of agar-agar. Mix thoroughly until there is no lump of agar-agar left.
- Heat up the mulled wine: In a pot, heat up the mulled wine on a medium heat just below the boiling point. Add agar-agar mixture, sugar, lemon juice and extra spices, stir to combine.
- Filter the out the spices or residues out, leaving just the liquid. Let the mixture cool down a liitle, then add to the mould over the coconut layer. Cover and let it set for 20 minutes in the fridge.
Notes
- The layer can be alter, make the mulled wine layer first and add the coconut layer after works as well.
