I redeemed myself in the kitchen this month. After last month’s travesty, I was afraid of February’s challenge. Fortunately, I had a better go of making a panna cotta and florentine sandwich cookies with chocolate than I did with last month’s dessert.

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.

Some of the variations I made to the recipe as posted:

• I added a little vanilla extract to the panna cotta, even though Giada’s original recipe does not call for it (probably didn’t need it, but it was a nice addition)
• I made a strawberry and red wine syrup topping to it, using David Lebovitz’s recipe for the syrup (it was incredible)
• I halved the recipe for the florentine cookies, since I didn’t want too many more than were for dinner guests that night
• I filled the florentine cookies with a combination of milk chocolate and mocha dark chocolate

Overall, our dinner guests and I were pleased! This was relatively easy to prepare overall, so I could easily make both of these again.