Saffron Date Posset – A Dessert You Should Know –

Ingredients:

  • 1,000 grams heavy cream (about 4 cups)
 
  • 150 grams date sugar (about 3/4 cup)
 
  • 0.2 grams saffron (a generous pinch)
 
  • 7 grams citric acid (sour salt, about 1 1/2 teaspoons)
 
  • 100 grams sugar (about 1/2 cup)
 
  • 1 preserved lemon (julienned)
 
  • pistachio oil (as needed)
 
  • honey (as needed, optional)
 
  • 40 pistachios (toasted)
 
  • 3 dates (pits removed, cut into small pieces)
 
  • thyme leaves (Lemon, as needed)
 
  • salt (Maldon, as needed)

Instructions:

Posset is also crazy easy to make. Grant sent me the base recipe as a text message: You just bring cream, sugar (15% of the cream weight), and any flavorings up to 85 C, stir in the citric acid (0.7% of the cream weight) and pour it into ramekins. Two hours of chilling later: presto, the creamiest, richest pudding imaginable.
 
The version I made today is flavored with date sugar and saffron. I went ahead and cooked it sous vide to give the saffron time to infuse, but you could absolutely do this on the stovetop as well. I was going for a Persian set of flavors, so the garnish was fresh dates, candied peel from a preserved lemon, pistachios and pistachio oil, with a few leaves of lemon thyme and grains of my beloved Maldon salt.
 
But you should absolutely feel free to improvise; posset would be good with any flavor that can handle a little sour bite from the acid. I could see honey-flavored posset, or vanilla of course, or Grant was working on jasmine posset… it is so flexible and easy that you’ll go back to it all the time.
 

Michael Natkin
Author of Herbivoracious.com