Almost a custard, a posset is an old English dessert you can think of like an eggless lemon pudding. Made with spruce tips and lime juice instead of lemon it tastes as refreshing as a Spring breeze. The best part is it's the easiest spruce tip recipe I know. Read on and I'll explain the details.
Silky-rich and custardy, but without any egg, possets are one of the best desserts I've discovered (thanks to my old pastry chef) in recent years. They were totally new to me, but apparently they're an old fashioned British dessert that used to be relatively common in America around the mid 20th century, but more so as a food for invalids and infants than as a dessert.
A spruce tip posset is a great variation on the traditional theme and flavors, and one you definitely need to try if you like spruce tips. Besides being an egg-less custardy dessert, which is interesting in itself, there's a little wizardry in them around how they actually set.
When you think of a custard, panna cotta, or creamy dessert, what do you think of? Eggs? Cream? Gelatin? I sure did before I met the posset. The setting process is where the posset differs from a lot of other custards in that they use citrus to set the custard, typically lemon. It's a bit of magic, and one of my favorite spruce tip recipes.
Cook some cream for a bit with sugar and put it in the fridge and nothing too exiting is going to happen. Add some lemon in the mix, and the dairy will react to the citrus just like adding rennet. A little sugar helps to stabilize the mix and, voila, a light, eggless custard forms after it's allowed to rest in the fridge.
How much citrus does it take to set?
Traditionally possets I've tried have an aggressive citrus taste, which does double duty of helping the mixture set. There problem developing these was that after switching the lemon to lime, since it pairs better with the spruce, the lime was too strong, and it tasted like key-lime posset.
This left me with the question: "how much citrus do you actually need to help the custard set?". I suspected it was less than the traditional posset recipes called for since they were also using the citrus as the main flavor, so I cut the lime juice in half so there was just enough to brighten the spruce flavor.
Posset = panna cotta's hot cousin
Side note, I used to work for a chef from Milan who told me that panna cotta, which literally translates to "cooked cream" was once a dessert made without gelatin, which, when you think about it makes sense, as that's what the name means.
Now cooking down cream will eventually produce something that sets, but it's definitely expensive, so, it follows that perhaps someone added gelatin to cream somewhere along the line to cut the cost of the dish and streamline it.
Keys to success
Just because this is easy doesn't mean it's easy. If you have any desire to make this read the following notes.
- I wanted a more firm posset than any recipe you'll find to compensate for the reduction of lime, so I reduced the cream by 30%. You need to watch carefully and make sure it doesn't overflow while reducing, unless you use a very wide pan like 12inch, but I don't recomend wide of a pan since it can over-reduce quickly.
- Cooling the cream completely to room temperature before pureeing is the most important. Puree cream with the spruce tips hot, and the mixture will lose aroma by the time you eat it. Puree the cream cold and it will make butter, break the emulsion and you'll be S.O.L. and starting over.
- For the perfect result, the spruce tips have to be finely chopped. If they get put in the cream and blended whole, the blender has to work too hard, and it takes longer to puree, which means that the cream will heat up in the blender and it wont taste as electric.
- Unlike my spruce tip ice cream, smaller amounts of this are better. I reccomend 2.5-3oz portions.
- You'll want a garnish with these that compliments spruce: blueberries and other berries, pine nuts, hazelnuts, white chocolate etc. Whipped cream and candied lime zest are good ideas too.
Spruce Tip Posset
Equipment
- 8 4 ounce ramekins or small custard cups
Ingredients
- 3 cups (720 ml) cream
- ⅔ cup (130 g) sugar
- ⅓ cup (20 g) chopped fresh or frozen spruce tips, any papery husks removed
- 2 tablespoons lime juice
- Tiny pinch of fine salt
Garnishes
- Whipped cream for garnish (optional)
- Fresh berries for garnish (optional)
Instructions
- In a high-sided pan that will resist overflowing, warm the cream and sugar and reduce on medium-low, stirring occasionally and watching carefully so it doesn’t boil over, until it looks reduced by about a third and you have 3 cups (720 ml) of sweetened cream.
- Cool the cream to room temperature.
- Working carefully, purée the cream, the spruce tips, the lime juice, and the salt in a blender until well blended, then pass it through a fine strainer, pour into the serving vessels, and refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight, uncovered.
- If you won’t be serving the custard soon, cover them to prevent them from absorbing the flavors of nearby foods.
- Serve with a dollop of whipped cream, and maybe some fresh berries tossed with a pinch of sugar.
Lister
Hi chef! I've been trying to incorporate spruce into a curd without much success. Would this recipe be able to replicate a curd-like texture if reduced less than the recipe states? The idea is to incorporate the spruce in a pavlova.
Alan Bergo
You could maybe blend them. Idk. If you do try it, just don't heat them.
Mila
The ingredients says 3 cups of cream (720 ml), and the instructions say to reduce by 1/3 until you're left with 3 cups again... is there a typo somewhere? If I reduce by 1/3 I'll be left with 2 cups of the sweetened cream, not the same quantity I started with originally.
Alan Bergo
Mila, when you add 2/3 cup of sugar to 3 cups of cream it increases the total volume, although it's not exactly a 1+1 ratio as sugar is less dense than water. If you don't reduce it a bit the posset won't set properly. I'm here if you have any other questions. A
Mila
Ah duh!! Thank you. That makes sense now. I made it last night, I think I over reduced it as it turned out fairly thick (I can cut it with a spoon) but it still melts in your mouth and it's great. I served with a tart black currant compote. Mmm!! Thank you for the recipe.
Alan Bergo
Great, glad it worked for you. There's a lot of variables here going on behind the scenes with this as happens with experimental things I make sometimes when there are zero references to look at. Traditional possets have much more citrus as it helps coagulate the dairy, but I cut down the citrus by a lot compared to other recipes to make sure the spruce is accented by the lime and not overpowered. To compensate for the reduction in citrus, you have to figure out a way to ensure it sets without it. Reducing the cream, which concentrates the fat that will be firm when chilled does the trick. This is one of those things that's easier to do by feel, so I tried my best to explain it with different reference points (oz, grams, and volume).
dietske van kessel
I love posset as well and made one recently with lemon verbena which was beautiful.
I now want to try and infuse black truffles in the posset. Do you think that will work and is it as good a combination as panna cotta with truffle? (I prefer posset to panna cotta)
Alan Bergo
No, the high amount of citrus in posset wouldn't be my first choice. Ice cream made with black truffles is very good though.