4-Ingredient Grapefruit Posset With Brûlée Topping

If you’re looking for a simple yet elegant dessert that feels like a special occasion, this Grapefruit Posset with a Brûlée Topping is the perfect recipe. It’s amazingly easy and comes together with just a few simple ingredients, 

Posset is an old-fashioned British dessert traditionally made with cream, sugar, and citrus juice. It’s luxuriously creamy—like a cross between a silky panna cotta and a lemon curd. In this recipe, we used fresh grapefruit for a slightly tart twist and finished it with a crackly brûléed sugar topping. It’s the kind of make-ahead dessert that looks impressive on the table but is super easy to make.

What are the origins of the posset?

Back in medieval Britain times, a posset was a remedy for colds and stomach issues. It was typically a curdled milk drink mixed with ale or wine and consumed primarily by the British aristocracy. By the 20th century, posset, in its current form, had become a staple of British cuisine. It’s seen as a refreshing summer citrusy dessert. 

What is the difference between panna cotta, pudding, and posset?

Panna cotta or American pudding recipes rely on cooking the cream and adding gelatin, eggs, or flour to thicken the cream.

So what thickens a grapefruit posset?

Today’s creamy dessert posset uses the natural curdling reaction between citrus juice and heavy cream that creates a silky custard-like texture without using either eggs or gelatin. The traditional flavor is lemon. Having made posset several times now (using grapefruit, orange, and lemon), I have learned that precisely measuring the ingredients is crucial to getting the right texture and consistency.

A few fun facts about posset

• Lemon posset (the most traditional flavor), a classic English dessert, has been featured in many Michelin-starred restaurants and is usually an alternative to a traditional custard or mousse.
• You can find references to posset in Shakespearean literature, the most well-known reference being in Macbeth where Lady Macbeth uses a poisoned posset to drug the guards.

The ingredients for grapefruit posset

• Grapefruit
• Lemon
• Heavy cream
• Granulated sugar (I prefer to use super-fine sugar)

Instructions for making grapefruit posset

1. Squeeez the juice from the grapefruit and lemon and strain it through a fine mesh sieve.
2. Zest the grapefruit.
3. Place cream and sugar in a medium saucepan and whisk together.
4. Over medium heat, bring the mixture to a gentle simmer or very light boil, whisking often. Continue simmering for 5 minutes adjusting the heat if necessary. You should see lots of small bubbles in the mixture.
5. Remove the saucepan from the heat and whisk in the grapefruit juice, grapefruit zest, and lemon juice. Let the mixture stand for 10 minutes.
6. Whisk the mixture again to make sure it’s smooth and pour the mixture evenly into four serving containers. Place them on a baking sheet, and put them in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours preferably overnight.
7. You can serve them as is or If you’d like a thin brûlée you’ll need to do that a few hours before serving. 
8. If you’d like a brûlée topping, spread a thin layer of super-fine sugar over the posset. Using a kitchen torch, melt the sugar on top until it becomes a caramelized brown color. Return them to the refrigerator for a few hours or until the posset is set again.

Here are two other fun posset recipes and one chocolate mousse recipe

• Lemon Posset
• Creamy Orange Posset
• French Chocolate Mousse