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Dessert

Lemon Posset

A sweet, tart dessert made with lemon juice, sugar, brandy, nutmeg, milk, lemon rind, and almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Lemon Posset

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lemon base

  1. Juice and strain the juice of 3 lemons.

  2. Add 3 tablespoons of sugar and stir until dissolved.

  3. Mix in 1 tablespoon of brandy and 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg.

Heat the milk

  1. Heat 1 1/2 pints of milk with the grated rind of 1 lemon until boiling.

Combine and serve

  1. Combine the milk mixture with the lemon mixture.

  2. Add some chopped almonds.

  3. Froth the mixture by pouring it from a height and serve hot.

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. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Nutmeg + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lemons
Their sharp acidity balances the sugar and cuts through the rich milk.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that softens the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that gives the posset its body.
Brandy
Adds a warm, alcoholic aroma that complements the lemon and nutmeg.
Nutmeg
Contributes a warm, spiced aroma to the drink.

The step that matters

Combine the milk mixture with the lemon mixture. Lemon juice is acidic, and acid can make hot milk curdle or turn grainy when the two meet. Adding the hot milk to the lemon mixture steadily, while stirring, helps keep the posset smooth and creamy.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, brandy, nutmeg, milk, almond):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy, nutmeg, milk, almond. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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