Lemon Posset

Late winter is when I start craving lemons. The weather is still grey and the garden has nothing to offer, but the citrus at the market is at its best: heavy in the hand, fragrant at the skin, juice that genuinely tastes of something. A posset is what I make with them when I want something bright at the end of a long evening.

It's the kind of recipe you almost can't believe works the first time. You simmer cream with sugar. You stir in lemon juice. You pour it into little glasses and put it in the fridge. Four hours later, it has set into something silky and cold and entirely right, with no help from eggs or gelatine or any of the usual scaffolding. The acid in the lemon does the whole job. That's it. That's the whole trick.

I've written it down in the notebook under "puddings worth the trouble," which is funny because it's barely any trouble at all. Ten minutes at the hob, then the fridge does the rest. A recipe is a conversation, not a contract: use lime if you've got no lemons, add a spoonful of limoncello if you're feeling festive, scatter a few raspberries on top in June. The principle holds.

Serve it cold in small glasses with a piece of shortbread on the side. Nothing else. There are few better feelings than putting something this simple in front of people at the end of a meal and watching them go quiet for a moment.