Lemon Posset With Raspberries
The easiest dessert you'll ever make.
Long before the Great British Bake-Off was a thing, a love affair with puddings across the pond was ignited on tour. I loved the Victoriana flavor of the names given them: Syllabub, Banoffee, Trifle, Bakewell, etc. I gravitated towards the custardy things one digs into with a spoon, spiked with citrus and thickened with rich egg yolk.
One night I flew from the West Coast to Heathrow, followed directly by a train ride to Manchester loaded up with all my gear and luggage. I arrived at our hotel beyond jet lagged, hallucinating my room smelled like tomato soup. I crawled into the bed in-all-my-clothes-and-yes-that-included-shoes, and too tweaked to sleep I flipped on the TV where Nigel Slater was cooking. This is the same Nigel Slater whose book The Kitchen Diaries had been something of a treatise for me on cooking, home, and why the business of eating well matters. I'd never visualized him up to that point. I can't remember what exactly he was making, only the easy care he was putting into it. Peeling apples gently, turning them over in his hands with a paring knife instead of hacking at them violently with the vegetable-peeler as I might do. It sticks in my mind how kind he was to all the ingredients in front of him, something that even in that zombie state really struck me. His recipes have a similar 'take care with this' tone. I find it comforting. Honestly, I have and still could read many of them like bedtime stories. They're some of the best writing *period*, whether or not you do plan to cook from them.
I'd never encountered Lemon Posset (or any other variety) before reading about it in his wonderful book Ripe but it's now in regular rotation over here. In spite of it's fancy sounding name it has just 3 ingredients: heavy cream, sugar, and lemon juice. It ain't diet food is what I'm saying, but it's so refreshing and you'll impress every guest you share it with. Like a custard but without egg yolks the magic it relies entirely on the fat content of the cream so make sure you get the real heavy-duty nice stuff. It's an ideal make-ahead dessert if your friends are coming over, served with a few raspberries or sliced strawberries on the side. It's the easiest dessert you'll ever make.
A Lemon Posset for Raspberries, Mulberries And The Like
Recipe As It Appears in Ripe, by Nigel Slater
INGREDIENTS:
makes four small glasses
Heavy Cream - 2 cups
Superfine Sugar - 3/4 cup
Lemon Juice - 5 tablespoons
DIRECTIONS:
- Put the cream and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally to dissolve the sugar. Reduce the heat so that the mixture doesn't boil over and let it bubble enthusiastically for about three minutes, stirring regularly.
- Remove from the heat, stir in the lemon juice and leave to settle. Pour into four small wineglasses or cups and leave to cool. refrigerate for a couple of hours before serving.
