Sluttishly Sweet: Blood-Orange Meringue Posset

For years and years I have made the most Traditional of Old English desserts – lemon posset – as my fail safe, trusted pudding. I am lazy, so any dessert that can be made with only three (yes, I said it, three!) ingredients is going to be my friend.

Lemons.
Sugar.
Cream.

That's all you need.

But, as with most things done repeatedly for years and years, it becomes reliable and a tad dull. I decided it was time to get zesty and give the posset a makeover. Now, we have had some excellent variations on posset in the past but what I came up with was this time can only be described as a hybrid between a lemon meringue pie and an orange posset. It's really delicious and as easy as lemon meringue (non-pie) to make. Nice with biscuits of various descriptions.

Note: You will need a small kitchen blow torch. If you don't have one – just get one. You can pretend you're in Flashdance AND they also come in handy for things like chargrilling peppers, barbecuing corn and getting things out of moulds.

Blood Orange Meringue Posset (makes 3)
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Chilling time: over an hour

• 300ml double cream
• 75g caster sugar
• 1 lemon, juiced and zested
• 1 blood orange, juiced and zested
• 2 egg whites
• 100g sugar

Make it!

• Combine the cream and sugar in a saucepan and bring to the boil on a very low heat.
• Boil for 3 minutes, then remove from the heat and stir in the orange and lemon juice and zest.
• Transfer to pretty ramekins (I like to use dinky coffee cups) and chill for at least an hour (overnight is best).
• When your possets are chilled, you can crack on with the meringue.
• Over a ban-marie, combine the egg whites and sugar, stir until the sugar has dissolved.
• Whisk the sugary egg whites until they are stiff and shiny.
• Top the possets with a generous amount of meringue and use a blow torch to colour and cook the meringue.