When only cold and wobbly desserts will do
Make honey panna cotta with gingery peaches
There comes a time each year when only cold, wobbly desserts will do. And in Brooklyn, that time has arrived. Piping hot cobbler? Dead to me. A chocolate chip cookie that requires my oven? I don’t know her. But cavort around I will with honey panna cotta topped with gingery peaches—a silly little treat that’s as ready for hotter summers as she is capable of mitigating them, one cooling, plant-based bite at a time.
Panna cotta may not be plant-based traditionally, but since many of its custardy cousins are, it can be adapted relatively easily. Italians make panna cotta (which translates to “cooked cream”) with—you guessed it—cream; but in other parts of the world, lower-carbon, plant-based ingredients like coconut cream and silken tofu are just as expertly custardized. In Puerto Rico there’s tembleque, a wobbly coconut pudding that’s sometimes dusted with cinnamon. In Taiwan and China there’s douhua, an astonishingly simple pudding made of silken tofu swimming in a brown sugar-ginger syrup.
Cream, coconut, and soy impart subtly different flavors, of course, so successfully veganizing panna cotta requires navigating those flavors and using them to advantage. Coconut cream and coconut milk are delish but brash; I use them when I want to actually taste coconut (which is often!), and steer clear when I want subtler flavors like vanilla or berries out front. Silken tofu and soy milk, on the other hand, are comparatively mild, though they’ve still got a slight beany-ness I like to cover up with medium-strong flavors, like honey.
That’s how I arrived at this tofu-based recipe for honey panna cotta served with gingery macerated peaches—the topping for which is a nod to the cooling use of ginger in douhua.
That this dessert is chilled and requires zero oven time (just five minutes on the stove) makes it rather climate-ready, if I do say so. As I’ve watched food media roll out the perennial lists of cold treats for hot days, I’ve found myself wondering if those lists will start coming earlier and staying later as climate change accelerates. Might the season of chilled or no-bake desserts get longer out of necessity, as it gets harder and costlier to cool our homes? I know my anti-oven season has already lengthened, as I sweat my way through a second New York summer with a window-AC unit as powerful as a mouse sneeze.
The potential for such shifts in our food-prep habits is fascinating to me, and seems far from impossible. Already, climate change is affecting the ingredients we cook and bake with. Heatflation temporarily knocked chocolate cake off the menu at certain cafes in India this summer. Climate change and invasive species are making it harder for chefs to find perch for Friday night fish frys in Wisconsin. In New Mexico, even chilis are feeling the heat. Is it so outlandish to think our methods for cooking might change, too? (Or that perhaps they already have? Are any data geeks tracking this kind of thing?)
That’s not to say cobbler is going anywhere. I would perish in a world without the Chez Panisse blueberry cobbler, as much as steamy season is simply not the time. But it may be worth bookmarking a list of cold dessert ideas for all those picnics and occasions still to come this summer. There’s no shortage of options, but honey panna cotta with gingery peaches should be at the top of your list.
Recipe: Honey panna cotta with gingery peaches
This honey panna cotta with gingery peaches is light, refreshingly zingy, and exactly the kind of thing you want to snarf while weathering a punishingly hot summer evening. The custard is adapted from a recipe for brown-sugary taho panna cotta in Abi Balingit’s cookbook Mayumu, which uses silken tofu and soy milk as a backbone. I veganized Abi’s recipe, subbing agar agar for the typical gelatin (though you can also use cornstarch—see substitution note). I also added honey and vanilla for a round summertime sweetness. The custard is very more-ish on its own; but add the gingery, honey-macerated peaches and the overall effect is thirst-quenching and heat-vanquishing, if only temporarily. The panna cottas are best eaten the day they’re made, but can be prepared in the morning if you’re going to serve them in the evening. The gingery peaches can also be made up to a couple hours in advance.
Makes four servings
Honey panna cotta
1 14-oz package (400g) silken tofu
1 cup (240g) soy milk
½ cup (170g) honey
1 teaspoon agar agar
1 tablespoon vanilla
¼ teaspoon salt
Gingery peaches
3 cups diced peaches
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
Pinch salt
In a high-powered blender, mix all the panna cotta ingredients together until perfectly smooth. Transfer the mixture to a medium saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, then reduce the heat to low and cook for three minutes, stirring occasionally. (Boiling activates the cornstarch or the agar agar; and cooking for three minutes thickens the mixture.)
Divide the mixture evenly between four drinking glasses or small bowls. Allow to cool to room temperature, then chill in the fridge for at least two hours, or until cold.
Meanwhile, make the gingery peaches. In a medium mixing bowl, gently mix together the diced peaches, freshly grated ginger, honey, and salt. Let macerate for at least a few minutes or up to a couple hours. Toss occasionally.
When ready to serve, top the panna cottas with the gingery peaches.
Substitution note: If you don’t have agar agar, you can instead use ¼ cup of cornstarch. Before mixing the panna cotta ingredients in a high-powered blender, whisk together the cornstarch and half the soy milk until you have a smooth slurry—then add it and the remaining panna cotta ingredients to the blender. Follow the same cooking instructions, but whisk constantly rather than occasionally. The texture will be thicker and more pudding-like when it’s done cooking, and will yield a softer but equally delicious panna cotta.
An extra helping
Invest in agar agar, a seaweed-based alternative to gelatin that stabilizes desserts like puddings and panna cottas at room temperature rather than at cold temps—hence its climate and picnic credentials. Unlike when you use gelatin or cornstarch, agar agar-based desserts don’t need refrigeration in order to set.
Read about how window AC units have become an unsettling status symbol of the climate crisis (via New York Times).
Make more chilled treats to fend off the sweat and the climate ennui, like any-fruit granita, ice cream floats with homemade ginger soda, or tahini-orange pudding.
Feast thine eyes upon all the panna cotta flavor combinations I tested before arriving at this recipe’s final, ginger-peach-honey form.
How fabulous 😍
it's time!