With the popularity of the espresso martini and coffee desserts like tiramisu, we wanted to create a dessert that combined a traditional Italian treat and one of our favorite trending flavors—coffee! We created these coffee panna cottas and they couldn’t be any easier! Plus, they are individually portioned and the perfect dessert to finish your Italian-inspired dinner or to cap off a date night at home.
What Is a Coffee Panna Cotta?
A panna cotta is a traditional Italian dessert that tastes like a cross between vanilla pudding and flan. It has more form than a pudding and comes together with gelatin. This differs from flan which gets its structure from eggs. A coffee panna cotta is a flavored version of this delightful Italian dessert, made with dark roast coffee and topped with espresso whipped cream.
Even though this dessert looks especially decadent (don’t skip the chocolate-covered espresso beans)—it’s incredibly easy to make. The entire dessert, including the espresso whipped cream, requires less than 10 ingredients and you probably have several in your pantry already. We recommend making extra espresso whipped cream for your coffee in the morning, or for topping homemade sweet breakfast dishes like French toast, pancakes, and waffles.
Test Kitchen Tips: If the espresso whipped cream is too much coffee flavor for your liking, replace the espresso with 1 tsp. vanilla or other favorite flavor extract.
