This last week has been “one of those weeks”. It’s not that anything has gone particularly wrong – only my posset that I meant to share with you yesterday for the (supposedly) weekly post I’m doing for the countdown to the Royal Wedding. But by the time I actually got home last night, it was all I could do to stumble into the door and promptly into bed.
So, let’s recap. Last week I chronicled the disaster that was my crumpets. Whoops. And this week, my main goal was to prepare and epically delicious tangerine and lemon posset – another traditional english dessert. Alas, it did not go quite as planned. I’m batting 0 and 2 right now. Oi Vie. Where has my mojo gone?
It seemed simple enough – with four ingredients.
~ 1 1/2 cup double cream (this is where I went wrong – I used 1/2 n 1/2)
~ Juice and zest of 2 tangerines
~ Juice and zest of 1 lemon
~ 1 tablespoon of honey
I poured the zest, juice and cream together and let it come to a quick boil. Letting it steep afterward for 30 minutes.
After straining the milk to get the zest/rine, and any small chunks that’d formed out of the milk it went back to the pan for another quick boil with the addition of the honey for sweetening.
It sure didn’t seem to be setting up right, so I figured I had to add a bit of gelatin to it. It seemed the only way. Gah!!
After letting it set in the fridge for a couple of hours I thought I was in the clear….until,
I looked at the bottom and realized it had separated. Flustered, frazzled, irked and irritated – I dug a spoon out of the drawer and tried it anyway. The idea is simple and delicious, my execution however was flawed.
After a bit more research you will find that the fat content of half and half is not nearly the content you need for something like this. Heavy whipping cream is much better, nearly 30-40% butter fat. Go figure. Double Cream, like is traditionally required, is hard to come by in the States. While I was in town yesterday I was able to pick some up – but it was $7 bucks for a half cup of it…this is not condusive for the shoestring chef.
But alas – determination is key and I will persevere! Posset will not beat me.
Although this was a miserable failure (again), there is something that will surely brighten your spirits as it did mine. If you can’t be at the Royal Wedding or aren’t crazy enough like me to be taking the day off work to watch it live on TV – here is a taste of what you will be missing…
Now, I have a posset to crush and put in it’s place.
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You can do it! I have faith in you!!!
Wouldn't you just die of laughter if that really happened at the royal wedding? That was an awesome clip! 🙂
This sounds like such a fantastic dessert. I know you can do it, making new recipes is always hard :-/ especially desserts where boiling dairy is involved.
Can't wait to see the victory post!
oh, if you could only see all my kitchen disasters. when cooking on narcotics, you omit important ingredients (too often) and end up with terrible results. thank god i'm not alone, and i can blame the narcotics for my disasters 😉
we all have kitchen fails! i have one just about every week 🙂
I have kitchen fails ALL the time. Haha I just saw a commercial on Lifetime for "William & Kate" and totally thought of you!!
To make you feel better. My uncle and I once made a butter cake, and forgot to add the butter!!! To our immense surprise the cake turned out alright in the end.
It's a pity you can't get double cream easily there, it's so readily available here (and not all that much more expensive) It never crossed my mind as something you wouldn't have. Although I didn't know 1/2 & 1/2 existed until I went State Side.
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