Panna cotta is sure to be a success by following these tips

Even if panna cotta itself looks like an extremely elegant and complex dessert, in reality panna cotta is made with just three ingredients: gelatine, sweet cream and sugar. Together with our tips and tricks, you should never be afraid of preparing it again.

Panna cotta was supposed to have become a traditional Piedmontese dessert in 2002, but that doesn''t mean you have to go to Italy to enjoy the refreshing and rich flavours that panna cotta has to offer . The perfect panna cotta can be made in the home kitchen with just three basic ingredients - gelatine, sweet cream and sugar. Despite its delicate texture and presentation, panna cotta is really just a pudding - its name translates as ''cooked cream '' - and its preparation is quite flexible; you can adjust the amount of sugar to your taste, add your favourite fruit or other flavourings.

Before the actual preparation, we should remember the golden rule of pastry-making: "Start by reading the recipe carefully and completely, then prepare the ''mise en place'' (''miznplac'') and start preparing the dessert".

And you can make panna cotta even easier by following the tricks and tips below.

1. Make sure the gelatine is completely dissolved before adding it.

Soaked and strained gelatine can be melted in several ways. However, it is important that the gelatine does not boil; if it is melted in cream, custard or other liquids, the latter must not be too thick either.

Another problem with adding gelatine to custards is that warm gelatine, which is in much smaller quantities than the custard, gels too quickly on contact with cold custard, and lumps of gelatine form in the custard. This is easily solved by heating a few spoonfuls of cream (if there is a lot of cream, heat a few spoonfuls more) and dissolving the gelatine in it. This is then added to the rest of the cream and mixed well, usually followed by the addition of whipped cream.

2. Avoid adding fruit with a high bromelain content.

Panna cotta is often made with fruit.

You can make panna cotta with strawberries or go for more exotic flavours and make a panna cotta dessert with passion fruit. But we have to be very careful when choosing the fruit.

Panna cotta is a dessert that contains gelatine, and the enzyme ''bromelain'', which certain fruits contain, prevents the gelatine from creating a firm dessert.

Bromelain is an enzyme found in certain fruits, including pineapple and kiwi fruit. Gelatine is a protein - specifically collagen. When bromelain and gelatine meet, the enzyme does the job it does best; it breaks down protein into its basic amino acids. This is what we want when we are tenderising a steak, but when we want our gelatine to harden into a smooth, firm panna cotta, we don''t want the breakdown.

If you can''t imagine panna cotta without pineapple or kiwifruit, there is a little trick: heat the pineapple or kiwifruit before combining it with the gelatine to deactivate the enzyme.

3. Watch the amount of fat.

If we choose to opt for a sweet cream with less fat, we need to increase the amount of gelatine in the panna cotta. The ratio of fat to gelatine is the key to a perfect panna cotta, but don''t let this scare you off. Panna cotta is also friendly to alternative dairy substitutes such as coconut milk (or cream), soya milk or your favourite nut milk (such as almond or hazelnut milk).

The lower the fat content, especially if using low-fat milk or a dairy alternative, the more likely it is that we need to increase the amount of gelatine used to keep the ratio in balance - depending on the fat content of the milk or cream. Optionally, we may need as little as half a teaspoon or as much as 3 teaspoons of gelatine per cup of milk to achieve the desired panna cotta texture.

4. Panna cotta not setting?

"Cook, do not boil"; this should be the main rule when making panna cotta. When heating dairy-based sweet cream, always heat slowly and at low temperatures.

Make sure that the gelatine does not boil; cooked gelatine will not thicken and, as a result, the panna cotta will not set properly. And what if the panna cotta just doesn''t set, despite the effort? Sometimes we succeed immediately, other times we have to try again.

Panna cotta is a dessert to which we can add different flavours as we like. We have prepared a few ideas:

• Panna cotta with toffee sauce
• Panna cotta as a dessert in a jar
• Panna cotta with BAM strawberry topping
• Hazelnut panna cotta