THE DARING BAKERS FEBRUARY 2011 CHALLENGE: Here's to a Creamy Dreamy Crunchy Sweet February!

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.

Here’s my effort – Giada’s Vanilla Panna Cotta, Nestle Florentine Cookies with Watermelon Sorbet. We have recently been on a big trip (for us from New Zealand) to London – our grown up kids for Christmas had booked for us to visit two Gordon Ramsay restaurants in London and on both occasions we had panna cotta with watermelon sorbet – delicious – my inspiration for making the sorbet and of course watermelons are in abundant supply down here just now.

My Panna Cotta was very soft, I think due to the gelatine ( Davis brand– very limited range down here and no setting data on packet ) – when I make again I will increase the amount a little. But the texture was otherwise very smooth, tasted a little sweet for me though.

The Nestle Florentine Cookies turned out quite big and I certainly didn’t get the 2 ½ - 3 dozen stated in the recipe, also I used golden syrup in place of dark corn syrup. Also delicious but quite sweet.

I found the watermelon sorbet recipe on line and had fun making it – it teamed well with the quite rich Panna Cotta – our cream in New Zealand is really creamy.

I enjoyed this challenge – it wasn’t too complicated and I produced 3 things that I will most definitely make again and again either together or separately – thanks Mallory.

Download the printable .pdf of the challenge HERE!

A slide show of other Daring Bakers results can be seen here http://thedaringkitchen.com/