SpiceLines

Which brings me, in a roundabout way, to honey lavender panna cotta. Having indulged in this treat for several mornings in a row, I can authoritatively say there is no more sybaritic way to ease into your day.

Panna cotta is basically sweet jellied cream: It just slithers down your throat. No effort involved. And why eat all that silken richness in the evening, when in the morning you have the whole day ahead to fret off the extra pounds?

It is especially indicated when the morning begins with the roar of the carpet cleaners, the dog having thrown up, once again, on your side of the bed. Is that your mother calling? Break out the panna cotta.

Cream is lovely for breakfast, especially with ripe fruit, but add lavender, honey and gelatin, chill it till it jiggles, and you’re on the stairway to heaven. Its sultry flavor is a throwback to summer, an echo of the fragrant garden when furry bumblebees vibrated lazily amongst the violet wands of Hidcote and Provence.

If you can still get blueberries, be sure to make the compote. Berries and lavender are made for each other—the pungency of the one seems to bring out the sweetness of the other. Since late season blueberries can be quite tart, you’ll probably want to stir in a little honey as well.

Panna cotta is Italian for “cooked cream.” In its simplest form, it consists of nothing more than simmered cream and sugar into which gelatin (first dissolved in a little water) is stirred. (Traditionally, this Piemontese dish was made with gelatin drawn from fish bones, but luckily we don’t have to go there.) Chill it for a few hours and it’s done.

London food critic Jay Rayner, appearing on Top Chef, stated that panna cotta, when properly set, should “wobble like a woman’s breasts.”

Wobbly or not, the great thing is that panna cotta is easy to make and can be flavored almost any way you like. That means you can tart it up with crème fraiche, tangy yogurt or buttermilk, or you can lighten it with a little milk. You can flavor it with chocolate, caramel, or vanilla, smother it with sweetened strawberries, peaches or raspberries, or concoct a White Russian by pouring the cream and gelatin mixture over a Kahlua-vodka base.

A couple of other panna cotta recipes definitely sound like breakfast. Dessert chef Claudia Fleming’s eye-opening Espresso-Orange Panna Cotta Parfaits with Coffee Gelee, from her book, The Last Course, would get me up before dawn. And if you can’t live without eggs, don’t miss “Molecular gastronomy—Panna cotta sunny side up” on YouTube.

But for me, if it’s going to be breakfast it has to be easy. I started with A16's recipe for Honey Pannacotta: just heavy cream, honey, powdered gelatin dissolved in water and a pinch of kosher salt. (This was the easy part of a more involved recipe that included a Panzanella of Blackberries and Buckwheat Cookies.) After a little experimentation—and a lot of tasting—I lightened the cream with milk and cut back a bit on the honey. But the biggest difference is the lavender infusion.

Because our lavender decided to bloom again, I used fresh flowers for the panna cottta, but a teaspoon of dried culinary lavender also works well. The important thing is to start tasting the infusion after 5 or 6 minutes so that the cream doesn’t taste like a linen closet. Steeping time will depend on the freshness and the pungency of the herb. Be sure not to leave it in too long since the flavor seems to intensify as the panna cotta sets.

Most recipes call for unmolding and serving the panna cotta on a plate. But this is really more for show. You can chill the creamy mixture in small glasses, even the little ones for juice that someone I know cadges from hotels. Spoon a little blueberry compote on top and eat it while you’re sitting on the stairs with the dog, or wandering around the garden contemplating the cost of new sprinkler system.

What a way to start the day!

Lavender Honey Pannacotta with Blueberry Compote
(Adapted from A16 Food + Wine)

Four to six servings

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons cold water
2 teaspoons powdered gelatin
2 cups heavy cream
1 teaspoon dried culinary lavender, or 6 fresh lavender flower heads
2 tablespoons milk
1/4 cup honey, or to taste
Pinch of salt

Ingredients for the blueberry compote:

1 pint fresh blueberries
Grated peel from 1 Meyer or other lemon
¼ cup honey, or to taste

Method:

1. Put the water in a small bowl and sprinkle the gelatin over it. Set aside.
2. In a medium saucepan, gently heat 1 cup of cream just until tiny bubbles appear around the edges. Do not boil.
3. Remove the cream from the heat and stir in the lavender. Steep for 5 minutes. Begin tasting the cream. When it is pleasantly flavored with lavender—this could require 1 to 5 minutes of additional steeping—pour the mixture through a fine strainer into a bowl. If you can still see particles of lavender in the cream, rinse the strainer and strain the mixture again.
4. Return the cream to the stove. Stir in the other cup of cream and 2 tablespoons of milk, and gently warm the mixture over medium low heat. When bubbles appear around the edges, stir in the honey and salt until they dissolve. Taste for sweetness--you can add a little more honey if you like. Remove from the heat and stir in the gelatin mixture until it dissolves.
5. Pour the mixture into 4 to 6 small glasses. Chill in the refrigerator for at least two hours.
6. Make the blueberry compote: Rinse the blueberries and remove any stems or grit. Place them in a small saucepan with 1 or 2 tablespoons of water and the grated lemon zest, cover and simmer over low heat until the blueberries are cooked through. Some of the berries should be whole, but there will be a fair amount of liquid as well. Stir in honey to taste—this will depend upon the sweetness of the berries. Pour into a container and refrigerate until needed.
7. To serve, spoon some of the blueberry compote over each panna cotta and eat slowly, savoring every bite.