Lemon Posset is one of those simple yet without doubt impressive desserts using three humble ingredients, lemon (or other citrus fruit, orange, lime even grapefruit) sugar and cream. With it’s origins dating back to the middle ages, a posset was in fact a drink used as a curative to the common cold and flu. In those day’s it was actually a drink of hot curdled milk infused with spices such as cinnamon and nutmeg, sugar or honey and laced with alcohol. Warm milk is in fact something we have nowadays to help us sleep so it’s still a remedy of sorts. A posset is essentially boiled cream with added ingredients and it’s those ingredients which help it to set. I love this dessert, it’s so simple and quick and easy to make, serve with either Madeleines, shortbread, langue de chat or other biscuit of choice, homemade of course!
The humble lemon, sugar and cream can make such an effective dessert.
Once made, pour into a jug which makes it easier to add to small bowls, work quickly because posset sets quite quickly.
Make pretty citrus strips for decoration using a citrus zester covered in sugar and left to dry.
Lemon Posset
A simple yet impressive dessert using three simple ingredients. Serve with biscuit of your choice such as shortbread thins even a French Madeleine will do nicely. If you don't like citrus peel in your posset, warm the milk first, not too hot and add the citrus peel, leave to infuse for 30 minutes then strain, follow the recipe as normal adding the lemon and sugar as in the recipe.
Ingredients
- 600 ml double cream
- 200g caster sugar can be golden
- 3 lemons zest
- 3 lemons juice
Instructions
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Put the cream in a big saucepan (must be big as cream will boil and you don't want it spilling over a small saucepan) with the sugar and gently heat together until the sugar has melted.
2) Bring to the boil and let it bubble for 1 minute, as above, careful it doesn't boil over.
3) Turn off the heat and stir in the lemon zest and juice. Pour into a jug and divide between 6 pretty pots. Cool at room temperature and chill for at least 3 hours or up to 24 hours. Can be made 24 hours before needed.
4) To decorate, use a citrus zester to create thin strips of zest, cover in 2-3 teaspoons of caster sugar,gently stir and leave out to dry and harden. When ready to serve, top with a few strands of sugar zest, a biscuit of choice, maybe a mint leaf and a dusting of icing sugar.
If you don't like zest in your dessert, omit, see point below in summary.
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Recipe Notes
If you don't like citrus peel in your posset, warm the milk first, not too hot and add the citrus peel, leave to infuse for 30 minutes then strain, follow the recipe as normal adding the lemon juice and sugar after boiling as in the recipe above. You can use any citrus fruit you like, method is exactly the same but for larger fruit such as oranges or grapefruit, use 2 for zest but still 75 ml of juice. For example to make orange posset, use zest of 2 oranges and 75 ml or juice, same with grapefruit.
