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Dessert

Almond Posset

A sweet almond dessert made by steeping bread crumbs in milk, then adding cream, almonds, rose water, eggs, and sweetening.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Almond Posset

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crumb

  1. Grate the crumb of a penny loaf very fine.

  2. Pour boiling milk over the crumb.

  3. Let it stand for 2-3 hours.

  4. Beat the mixture well.

Make the cream base

  1. Add heavy cream, ground almonds, and rose water, and mix everything thoroughly.

  2. Place over a very low fire and boil for a quarter of an hour.

  3. Let it cool.

  4. Mix in the beaten eggs.

  5. Sweeten to taste.

  6. Stir over low heat until it thickens. Do not let it boil.

Serve

  1. Pour into a china bowl.

  2. Add 3 macaroons to float on top before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  4. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Penny loaf crumb
Soaked in hot milk, it thickens the posset and gives it a soft body.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the posset a smooth, creamy texture.
Blanched almonds
Provide body and nutty flavour as finely ground solids in the mixture.
Eggs
Set with gentle heat to thicken the custard into a soft, spoonable texture.
Rose water
Adds a delicate floral aroma to the cream.

The step that matters

Stir over low heat without boiling. Egg proteins thicken gently at low temperature but curdle and turn grainy if the mixture boils. Keeping the heat low and stirring steadily keeps the posset smooth.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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