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Chocolate Panna Cotta, it’s creamy and smooth with a rich chocolate flavour. Easy to whip up then left to chill in the fridge, it’s the perfect make-ahead dessert for dinner parties, weekends and special occasions.
Panna Cotta is a traditional Italian dessert that literally means cooked cream. It’s one of the simplest desserts you can make and you can change it up with so many different flavours such as classic vanilla, lemon, strawberry and of course chocolate!
What Chocolate To Use?
Dark chocolate is my favourite type of chocolate to use when making desserts. This Panna Cotta is made with sugar, vanilla, cream and milk so dark chocolate is perfect for this recipe, I recommend using at least 70% cacao. Milk chocolate would make this dessert much sweeter and would lack the intense chocolate flavour this dessert has.
Adding chocolate to the panna cotta gives it almost a mousse-like texture, it’s smooth and creamy and slightly fluffy. It’s extremely delicious and a great, light dessert for after dinner.
How To Make Chocolate Panna Cotta – Step By Step
First, add the gelatine leaves to a bowl of cold water and let it sit for 10 minutes until soft.
Add the cream, milk, sugar to the sauce pan. Scrape the vanilla seeds from inside the pod and add the vanilla to a saucepan on medium/low heat. Heat the mixture until the sugar has dissolved. Bring the milk and cream to a simmer then turn off the heat.
Tip: Place your used vanilla pod in a jar of sugar, this will add a lovely vanilla flavour to the sugar that can be used when baking.
Add the finely chopped chocolate to the milk and cream and stir slowly until the chocolate has completely melted (photos 1-5)
Pin this now to find it later
Pin ItSqueeze the gelatine to remove as much water as possible then add it to the hot cream and chocolate. Whisk constantly until the gelatin has melted then set the saucepan aside to cool (photos 6-8).
Once cooled strain the mixture into serving glasses and place in the fridge to set for at least 2-3 hours before serving.
More Italian Desserts To Try
Italian Desserts
Vanilla Panna Cotta (classic recipe)
Italian Desserts
Boozy Bailey’s Panna Cotta
Italian Desserts
White Chocolate Panna Cotta
Italian Desserts
Chocolate Semifreddo Recipe
- Orange chocolate cantucci biscuits
- Pandoro Christmas cake with pistachios and white chocolate
- Tiramisu ice cream
- Apple olive oil cake
- Chocolate hazelnut ice cream
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Step By Step Photos Above
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Chocolate Panna Cotta
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cup (300ml) cream
- 1 1/8 cup (250ml) milk
- 3 leaves gelatine, * see notes for conversion
- 1 1/2 tbsp (20g) sugar
- 3.5 oz (100g) dark chocolate 70% cacao, , finely chopped (or use dark chocolate chips)
- 1/2 vanilla pod
Instructions
- First, add the gelatine leaves to a bowl of cold water and let it sit for 10 minutes until soft.
- Add the cream, milk, sugar to a saucepan. Scrape the vanilla seeds from the bean/pod and add vanilla to a saucepan on medium/low heat. Heat the mixture until the sugar has dissolved. Bring the milk and cream to a simmer then turn off the heat.
- Add the finely chopped chocolate to the milk and cream and stir slowly until the chocolate has completely melted.
- Squeeze the gelatine to remove as much water as possible then add it to the hot cream and chocolate. Whisk constantly until the gelatin has melted then set the saucepan aside to cool.
- Once cooled strain the mixture into serving glasses and place in the fridge to set for 2-3 hours.
Notes
- You can substitute 3 gelatine leaves for 1 tbsp of powdered gelatine. Please note I have not tested this recipe with powdered gelatin.
Helpful Info for All Recipes
- I always use extra virgin olive oil in all of my recipes unless stated otherwise
- When I use canned or jarred tomatoes of any kind I always use Cirio or Mutti brands for the best results and flavour.
- All vegetables are medium sized unless stated otherwise
- All recipes are tested and developed using a fan (convection) oven
- Find out more about how nutrition is calculated.
- Check out our must have Italian Pantry Staples.
- You can also find all our Essential Kitchen Tools for Italian Cooking.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Is there a way of stopping the thicker skin you get on top of the panna cotta when it has set in the fridge?
Hmm, I’ve never had that happen before. I would try putting plastic wrap (cling film) directly on top of the panna cotta after pouring it into moulds or glasses, that’s what I do with custards to prevent a skin forming.
Straining the mixture before pouring into the dessert cups will prevent the “skim” for forming.
Tried out this recipe the other day the texture was amazing!
I substituted the 3 gelatin leaves for 1 gelatin envelope. it works! when re hydrating the envelope you may want to use 2.5-3 tbsp of water.
also if you use dark chocolate you may have to add more sugar to balance out the flavors. I went with a 78% cocoa. there was still a rich chocolate flavor, but i would up the sugar to about 2.5-3 tbsp or so.
overall great and easy to follow recipe.
Hi Chris, thanks for sharing your great tips, I’m so happy you enjoyed it!
Gonna try it! Looks better than my fav – Mousse! Can’t wait!