Skip to main content
Dessert

Coi,D Posset

A chilled dessert made from cream, milk, lemon rinds, lemonade, and sugar, topped with currants and caraway confections.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Coi,D Posset

Ingredients

Directions

Make the posset

  1. Combine the cream, milk, and lemon rinds in a bowl and let it sit for several hours.

  2. Mix in the lemonade and sugar, whisking well and removing any froth that forms.

  3. Pour the mixture into a large bowl and cover with a plate, letting it cool for 8 to 10 hours.

Top and serve

  1. Top with currants and the froth, then sprinkle with additional currants or caraway confections.

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. Lemon + carawaytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together270 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  4. Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Cream + milktop 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

Cream
Provides fat and richness, giving the posset its thick, smooth body.
Whole milk
Adds moisture and dairy body that softens the set and keeps the texture creamy.
Lemonade
Supplies acidity and citrus flavour, which helps thicken the cream mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the tartness of the lemonade and lemon rinds.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into a large bowl and cover with a plate, letting it cool for 8 to 10 hours.. The long cooling time lets the acidic lemon mixture set the cream into a firm, smooth custard. Cutting the time short leaves it runny, and a wide bowl helps it cool evenly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, milk, lemon, sugar, caraway):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, milk, lemon, sugar, caraway. 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipes