I’m a child of the 80s and a child of a regular family who ate lots of the convenience foods sold to us on the promise of making life tastier, easier, less expensive – AKA the generation that adopted cereal with open arms. I’m not going to lie when I tell you I remember the taste of cereal milk – a little sweet, a little grainy and making one’s milk a little thicker at the end of the breakfast experience.
When my son and I were having a “relax and do nothing” day recently (HIGHLY recommend. Exactly what the doctor ordered!) we watched the lastest series of Chef’s Table, a sweet-focused series, and we watched the story of the rise of chef Christina Tosi. While I might not eat the same way – partly because of that nasty gluten intolerance but also because I prefer less sweets and less colours, there’s no denying her incredible achievements, beautiful creativity and skill in cooking – something I consider myself very much on a journey rather than having ‘arrived’.
Anyway, she talked about how it was the cereal milk panna cotta that got her in the lime light. My little man Seb decided we simply HAD to make a cereal milk panna cotta ‘our way’ (bless him!) and do one for the blog.
To that end, here we are. Coconut milk makes this oh so luscious, vanilla bean powder adds my signature to it, and a simple organic flake cereal I found at my local health shop with corn, flax, amaranth and quinoa in the mix, made it all possible.
This is SO easy and good enough to top with nuts seeds and fruit compote as a breakfast, as it is to serve for a simple family dessert. I’d double everything if you’re a family of 5+ and enjoy having lunchbox leftovers.
Here’s my little man enjoying ours! He was very proud of our efforts indeed and loved the taste! When he heard cereal on the show he asked “mum, what’s cereal?” Hehe.
Now he knows…
Let me know how you enjoy it
Alexx x
Gluten and dairy free cereal milk panna cotta
Ingredients
- 1.5 cups gluten / dairy free cereal flakes I found this cereal at the health shop but also available for internationals on Iherb https://iherb.co/44bMouNF
- 600 ml coconut milk I use Ayam. Best texture.
- 1 tbsp maple syrup or honey
- 1 tsp vanilla bean powder You can get the one I use from my Iherb pantry list https://iherb.co/3Lhq6w16
- 1 tbsp (FLAT) powdered grass fed gelatin Vital Proteins grass fed is the best option from Aussie here http://bit.ly/EmporioOrganicoGelatin or Iherb internationally here https://iherb.co/34hGBSCi
Instructions
- Pour the coconut milk into a bowl with the cereal flakes and mix. Leave to sit for half an hour and go for a nice walk or pop your feet barefoot in the grass, with a cup of tea!
- Strain the milk into a bowl and press the cereal flakes to extract most fo the milk still sitting in the soggy flakes. Pop your flakes in the freezer to use for your next batch of biscuits in the dough, or into the compost.
- Heat a saucepan on medium and pour in the coconut milk, maple syrup and vanilla bean powder until the milk starts to bubble well on the sides.
- Turn off the heat, sieve your gelatine through a tea strainer over the top of the milk and whisk it through so it's well combined. Pour out into whatever mould you fancy using. You can do 4 small ramekins or 1 larger tin as we did.
Make a berry compote on top
- If you wanted to serve with a berry compote, simply defrost 2 cups mixed berries into a medium-heat saucepan add 1 tbsp maple syrup or honey and 1 tsp vanilla bean powder and stew for 5-10 minutes tops. Serve with the panna cotta by allowing guests to dollop onto it themselves - I'd never dare suggest messing with someone else's idea of a good ratio! 😉
- My chocolate mousse recipe has a delicious hazelnut praline as a part of it, which you could do with any type of nuts (macadamia is a nice subtle one for this panna cotta, so you could add that praline in for a bit of crunch https://www.lowtoxlife.com/3-ingredient-chocolate-mousse/
- And a final idea, you could actually serve this for breakfast topped with granola, nuts, seeds, chia and berry compote or fresh mango in the summer time - options, options...
