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Desserts

Date nightMake-aheadNo flourNo seed oils

Three desserts that finish a dinner properly. Two are made in the morning, and one takes 30 seconds at the table.

My recipes. Dessert is what makes dinner feel planned. All three skip flour and seed oils: just cream, eggs, good chocolate, fruit and coffee.

At a glance

Make it before she arrives

Per serving. Carbs are mostly sugar, from the sugar, fruit and chocolate.

Which one when

  • Panna cotta: the elegant one, made in the morning
  • Mousse: for a chocolate lover, made in the morning
  • Affogato: no prep, all show
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Good to know

  • The mousse uses raw eggs, so buy pasteurized eggs
  • An espresso has about 60 mg of caffeine. Use decaf if it's late.
  • Panna cotta's gelatin is a nod to glycine, not a real dose
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1Vanilla panna cotta with berries

Serves 4 · 15 min, then 4 h to set · make it the morning of

  1. Sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water and let it bloom for 5 minutes.
  2. Warm the cream, milk and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat until steaming. Don't let it boil.
  3. Off the heat, whisk in the bloomed gelatin until it fully dissolves, then the vanilla and salt.
  4. Pour into 4 small glasses or ramekins and chill at least 4 hours, or overnight.
  5. Serve in the glass, or unmold by dipping each ramekin in hot water for 5 seconds and turning it onto a plate. Pile berries on top.

Serving it in wine glasses skips the unmolding and looks better. The goal is a gentle wobble, not a firm set. If it's rubbery, use a little less gelatin next time.

full nutrition ↓

2Dark chocolate mousse

Serves 4 · 20 min, then 2 h to chill

  1. Melt the chocolate in a bowl over barely simmering water, or in 20-second microwave bursts, then let it cool until just warm.
  2. Whisk the yolks into the chocolate one at a time. It will thicken.
  3. Whip the cream to soft peaks. In a clean bowl, whip the whites with the sugar and salt to stiff peaks.
  4. Fold the cream into the chocolate, then the whites in two additions. Fold gently and stop when no white streaks remain.
  5. Spoon into 4 glasses and chill 2 hours. Top with berries, flaky salt or shaved chocolate.

This uses raw eggs. Pasteurized in-shell eggs remove the salmonella risk and whip just as well. Use them if anyone eating is pregnant, older or immune-compromised.

full nutrition ↓

3Affogato

Serves 1 · 2 minutes · pour it at the table

Put a scoop of ice cream in a small chilled glass. Bring it to the table and pour the hot espresso over it in front of her. Eat it right away, while it's half melted.

No espresso machine? 2 tbsp of very strong moka-pot or French-press coffee works. If it's late, use decaf espresso (see caffeine).

full nutrition ↓

Nutrition per serving

This is calculated from the same USDA data as Build a Day.

Dessert

% of the daily target for men (the same targets as Build a Day). ~ = mostly estimated. Carbohydrate is what's left of the calories after protein, fat and alcohol.

Nutrition notes

Panna cotta's gelatin: a nod, not a dose

Gelatin is about one-fifth glycine, but a packet split four ways is under 2 g of gelatin per glass. That's about a third of a gram of glycine, against the 10 g target on the Glycine page. Panna cotta is a dessert, not a supplement. If you want real glycine from the same idea, a cup of set bone broth or a scoop of collagen gets you there. (Strong: USDA composition data)

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Dark chocolate brings minerals

At 70–85% cacao, dark chocolate is one of the richest everyday sources of copper and magnesium, and it has a good amount of iron. The mousse's 1 oz of chocolate per serving shows up clearly in the panel. That's a reason to buy the darker bar rather than milk chocolate, which is mostly sugar and milk solids. (Strong: USDA composition data)

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Raw eggs in the mousse

Classic mousse folds in raw yolks and whites, and the eggs are never cooked. The salmonella risk from a single fresh egg is small, but it isn't zero. The FDA's advice for dishes with uncooked eggs is to use pasteurized eggs, which are sold in the shell and whip the same. That's the easy choice if anyone at the table is pregnant, older or immune-compromised.

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Caffeine in the affogato

A shot of espresso has about 60 mg of caffeine in USDA's data, roughly two-thirds of a small cup of drip coffee. Caffeine stays in your system for several hours, so an affogato at 10 pm can cut into your sleep. Decaf espresso tastes the same over ice cream.

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