Lemon posset with blueberries & macadamia shortbread
on Jul 23, 2014, Updated Nov 23, 2022
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Not too long after Mr. Scrummy and I first met, I decided to cook him a meal. In my mind, it was going to be so delicious. And (bonus) so easy to ‘throw together’ as well. Sweet potato gnocchi with some kind of sauce – mushroom as I remember. A-hem. You can probably guess what’s coming.
Yup, it was absolutely disgusting. My over-confident self, having made gnocchi a couple of times before reasonably successfully, had decided not to bother with a recipe this time. I mean, what could possibly go wrong? Just cook the sweet potato, add an egg and some flour and it’s done. Except that I really didn’t need to add as much flour as I thought. In theory, this meal had so much potential but all we could taste was flour. I think we both managed about four or five forkfuls each. Yucky yuck yuck.
I think we can all relate to this scenario. You have an idea in your mind about how something might work out, food related or otherwise, but the reality is something totally different. Just thinking off the top of my head right now, I can think of the time a friend asked me to trim his hair. I thought it would be OK, but it was absolutely terrible, poor guy. All uneven & lopsided. Oops. Then the big one is that I never expected in a million years to marry an Australian followed by spending a lot of time in planes travelling backwards and forwards halfway across the world.
Going back to food with too much flour in it, just this last weekend I made some sort of zucchini pecan muffins that were wonderful in the ‘envisaging’ stage – so moist and healthy and flavourful. In reality, they were so dense and … well, ‘floury’ … that they reminded me of that scene in the Hugh Grant film, About a Boy, when the young boy throws his mum’s bread into the pond and it’s so heavy that it kills a duck. I just ate another one to try to convince myself that they’re actually OK, but no, they’re really not. In the bin they shall go.
Of course this kind of ‘food flop’ is always disappointing, especially after you’ve researched a little, trotted off to the shops, spent ages traipsing the aisles looking for the ingredients, spent even more time clattering around the kitchen and outside taking photos and then had to clean up the disaster area of a kitchen you’ve left in your wake. When this happens to me (rather a lot lately) I just console myself with the fact that I can probably make an entertaining post out of all of these ‘misses’ at some point. Some point rather soon if I keep on with all this flopping!
Aaanyway, what I’m leading up to is to slightly boastfully tell you that this lemon posset with blueberries & macadamia shortbread is one recipe that will thankfully NOT be added to the ‘flops’ folder. I had never made a posset before, I was a bit pressured for time and I was making this to take to a dinner with friends so needed it to taste OK. Thankfully, this did end up exactly how I’d hoped it would. Phew.
‘So what on earth is a posset?’ I can imagine you asking. Well, apart from being a very old dessert, apparently dating back to medieval times, basically it’s just thick cream that’s heated with sugar and lemon juice and zest and then left to set in the fridge. That’s really it. I was worried the whole time I was making it that it wouldn’t set. I mean, there was no gelatin or thickener of any kind in it, so how could it? Well, apparently it’s the acid in the lemon juice that does the trick. I also thought it might curdle when I added the lemon juice to the cream, but no. Because of the high fat content of the cream, this doesn’t happen either. Double phew.
The resulting dessert is rich, creamy, silky, tangy and, yes, nicely set! I decided to add a simple blueberry layer that I made by heating blueberries with a little sugar for a few minutes. I also decided to make a quick macadamia shortbread to dip into the posset, which I was particularly pleased with.
This is probably one of the simplest ‘impressive’ desserts you could ever make. You could have this made and in the fridge in less time than you could run to the shops to buy a dessert. The shortbread took hardly any time to make, as well, but if you wanted to keep things even simpler and use shop bought then of course that would be fine. The only thing you need to consider when making this is to make it well before you want to eat it, because it really needs to be in the fridge for a good four or five hours to be properly set.
Also … just one little note about the shortbread. At first I thought that this was going to be added to my ‘fails’ list as well. The dough was extremely crumbly when I tried to bring it together but kneading it a little in several batches seemed to make it easier to handle. It’s definitely worth the extra few minutes of work for the lovely buttery, crumbly, nutty shortbread you end up with.
So … had any food flops lately? What about your food successes? I can’t wait to share my food flops with you someday soon, but for today I am happy to be able to share one of my great food successes! Enjoy!
Lemon posset with blueberries & macadamia shortbread
Ingredients
For the lemon posset
- 2 cups double cream
- 2/3 cup fine sugar
- zest & juice of 2 lemons
For the blueberry compote
- 9 ounces blueberries, I used frozen but fresh are fine, too
- 1/2 cup fine sugar
For the macadamia shortbread
- 1/3 cup icing sugar
- 12 tablespoons butter, softened
- 3 ounces macadamia nut pieces
- 1 cup plain flour
- a pinch of salt
Instructions
For the lemon posset & blueberry compote
- Pour the cream into a medium-sized pan and bring it to the boil. Add the sugar and lemon juice and zest. Simmer gently for about 3 minutes, then take the mixture off the heat and let it cool for about half an hour.
- Pour the mixture into ramekins or glasses, cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge to set for at least 4 to 5 hours.
- Meanwhile, put the sugar into a small pan and heat it until it melts. Add the blueberries and cook for about 5 minutes until you have a compote. Take it off the heat and let it cool.
- Just before serving, spoon a thin layer of blueberry compote on top of the lemon posset.
For the macadamia shortbread
- Preheat the oven to 300F/150C.
- Cream the butter and the sugar together with a handheld whisk, then work in the flour and macadamia nuts with a wooden spoon.
- Turn the mixture out onto a board or clean work surface and gather it up into 3 balls of dough. Knead each dough ball a little until it will come together.
- Roughly shape each ball into an oblong and then cut it into about 1-cm wide pieces with a sharp knife. You will end up with rough half-circle-shaped pieces of dough.
- Place the uncooked shortbread pieces on a baking sheet lined with baking paper and bake for about 15 to 20 minutes or until the shortbread is a light golden colour.
- Leave the shortbread to cool on a cooling rack. To serve, pop a piece of shortbread into the top of each pot of dessert. Delicious!
Notes
Nutrition
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Helen, I am SO excited that you posted about food flops. All I can think about is “thank god I’m not the only one!” I know the feeling of a failed dish for blogging all too well. I’ve never tried to make gnocchi but I’ve eaten it and it looks very advanced! I always find it a little bit scary when you first begin to date and you “claim” you can cook (because you can!) and then you get over-confident and all hell breaks loose! Ha! This dessert is certainly flop-free. I love creamy, dreamy layered parfaits like this, especially with something crunchy alongside. Perfection! My mouth is watering 🙂
Well, I’m blushing a bit right now at all the compliments, Allison. Thanks so much! Actually, gnocchi isn’t very complicated to make at all, although it does take a little bit of time to do all the rolling and cutting of the dough. I’d like to give the sweet potato gnocchi another go some time – but this time using a recipe! 🙂
oh Helen, they look delightful! I need to give it a try.
Last week I´ve made your panini recipe and it was amazing! So easy and simple, really delicious. Thank you for that!
This post made me remember the first meal I cooked for my husband. We weren´t even together yet and I made spaghetti with salmon. It turned out great, but years after that I discovered he doesn´t like pasta with seafood at all 😛
Hi, Karla! You can’t imagine how excited I feel right now that you made my panini … blush, blush! And of course I’m delighted that you liked it so much! Mmm… spaghetti with salmon sounds absolutely wonderful!
That’s a funny story about the meal you cooked for your husband. At least he was nice enough not to mention it at the time! 🙂
Lemon and blueberries go so well together. This looks really good (great photos too by the way).
I am new to your blog, but I have bookmarked it to come back daily 🙂
They do go well together, don’t they? I fairly recently made a lemon curd and blueberry cake, too, which seemed to go down really well with readers. Thanks so much for passing by the blog, and I’m so happy that you like it and want to stay around! 🙂
Thanks for teaching me what posset is! I had no idea! And this dessert looks stunning and elegant! So perfect for summer too… love lemon and blueberries together 🙂
Oh, you’re welcome, Chris! I think a posset is well and truly a British dessert, but it’s so beautiful that the rest of the world definitely needs educating about it! 🙂
What a great idea! I love the step by step pics, they really do help wen attempting to make the recipe.
Thank you, Layla! It’s nice to know that the step by step piccies help a little because to be honest they are sometimes a bit of a pain to take as they slow me down so much. 😉
Sometimes we just eat the flops and I have even blogged some! Love the look of these – I am drooling 🙂
Hahaha … yes, I think I would have to admit to having blogged a few flops too, Tandy!!
Oh what a shame about the gnocchi. I’ve found sweet potato and pumpkin to be really hard to make into gnocchi. I think they’re too “wet” or something and I end up with stodgy weights! This lemon posset looks entirely delectable though!
Well, I’m glad I’m not the only one! Maybe that’s it – too wet! Although I know I added too much flour, too. 🙁
Glad you like the posset – and know what it is!
Hi Helen, beautiful dessert, never heard of it before but now thanks top you I know what a posset is. And yes I have had so many disasters, I remember one time boiling eggs for a potato salad, time must of got away I heard a strange noise, ran out to the kitchen to find a empty pan and about the same time a egg dropped from the ceiling. Ooops!
Hahahaha! Thanks for the giggle, Cheri – that’s hilarious! I think food disasters go with the territory when you’re a food blogger!
Oh Helen, I cracked up reading this post! Especially with the bread-in-pond thought. Haha! My latest flop was a few days ago when I attempted a focaccia recipe and it barely rose at all. Edible, but not the fluffy delicious focaccia I was dreaming of. This dessert looks fabulous! I had never heard of a posset, but it looks so tasty! Love lemon + blueberry together. Plus this shortbread? Mmmmm. I’m wishing I had some now to snack on!
So glad you like it, Alyssa! The shortbread really was amazing, and VERY buttery. Have you tried the bread again yet? The closest I’ve got to bread-making is making my own pizzas, and I find that even those can vary a lot. I usually manage to get the thickness totally wrong! 😉
Recipe flops are the worst! Especially on a special occasion such as making a fancy dinner for your mister. I’m sure you’ve made up for it since, with all the yummy recipes you post here! Like this lemon posset with blueberries and macadamia shortbread. Yum!
Well, that’s true … he can’t really complain … haha! 🙂