Espresso Panna Cotta With Reduced Amaretto Syrup


It was two Easter Sundays ago, in a restaurant in a town called Ardea, when my son discovered how much he liked mono portions of dessert in glasses like these. After a full-course lunch that lasted until late in the afternoon and so many dishes for every course, my son's long lost appetite and impatient demands to go home suddenly came to a halt when he saw the waiters carrying large trays of different kinds of desserts. He's not a dessert person so I wondered why his 2 glasses doubled, tripled then quadrupled, until the point when we arrived to an embarrassing amount of empty glasses on our table. I thought I saw worry in the waiters' eyes too. They did declare continuously to eat as much as we wanted, didn't they?


My son loved the chocolate mousse, the panna cotta with chocolate, with berries and the coffee, which we only allowed a teaspoonful. Like a polite little guest, he also thanked the chef from the open door of the kitchen back door for the wonderful dessert. And true to my son's nature, he was insistent that we took home all the empty glasses (they're disposable) to keep as souvenirs in his bulging chest of drawers of other odd pieces of souvenirs. They're all going to end up in the garbage anyway. True. As a compromise, we took home only a few after my husband uneasily washed them in the bathroom while I wrapped them in tissue paper before stashing in my bag. We still had a long drive to do to reach home and a complaining and crying kid in the car would have been disastrous! 

So here it is, after two years, I finally found the little disposable glasses that he was so crazy about and found very good use of them for this dessert. And it's time to make more desserts for him. If you are a coffee lover, take my word for it, it's delectable! Coffee, chocolate and amaretto, how can we go wrong with the flavors?

Click on this link to see the recipe at She Knows, a site where I create recipes. If you want to see the full list of recipes (and travel articles I wrote too!) at She Knows, click on this other link. Thanks and enjoy!