Lemon Posset Shortcakes

As you’ll recall, once a month, one of the recipes I bake goes to my friend and co-worker, Gilad.  Unfortunately, at the end of this month (so, at the end of this week!), he’ll no longer be my co-worker. 😦 I’m glad he’s not leaving the area, and I’ll still see him at least once a month through this year, though! 🙂 Anyway, I had a hard time picking what to give him this month, so I let him choose. He said he loved lemon, so this was it!

I haven’t tried these yet, though the leftover posset was delicious. Maybe he’ll let me have a taste tomorrow!

I love the chemistry of baking. I remember baking as a kid and being fascinated by being able to mix simple ingredients together and make something totally different from any of the inputs. My Mom thought she was being sneaky by using it to teach me fractions, but I think she really gave me an interest in chemistry instead.

I love watching eggs and sugar transform before my eyes into foamy goodness. It’s one of the best parts of making a génoise. Other than the eating of it, of course.

Once you’ve beaten the eggs & sugar into a foam, you mix a little of the foam in with the browned butter and vanilla, then fold the flour into the foam. I had to use the cake flour + cornstarch substitution because it turns out I’m out of Robin Hood “best for blending,” which is the equivalent of Wondra flour that is specified in Rose’s génoise recipes.

I use my stand mixer’s whisk attachment to fold flour into eggy foams, because it’s the ballooniest whisk I have.

Then you fold in the foam that was mixed with the butter & vanilla.

Pour into the shortcake pan. Don’t be like me – be careful when pouring it in, to make sure it gets nicely into the very bottom corners of the pan, so that you end up with perfectly shaped cakes.

There was a thread in our Facebook group about the price and availability of Meyer lemons. I found them at Sobeys for $4.99 for a 1 lb bag. Given that normal lemons were pretty close to the same price at, typically, about $0.99 per lemon, I didn’t think this was particularly usurious, but my baking friend from Florida said “No way” to $2.99/lb. Oh what a difference perspective makes to food prices!

To make posset, which is apparently a treat that goes back to medieval times, you scald cream, then, basically, curdle it with something acidic. In this case, you also add sugar.

It’s not really curdled, but it’s definitely clotted.  After it’s set up in the fridge a bit, you take the top layer of posset, which is thicker than the stuff underneath, and spread it in the crater on the cakes (which have previously been dowsed in lemon syrup and brushed with apple jelly to make sure they stay moist).

After taking off the top layer, you can see that my posset is still somewhat thick.

Nevertheless, the cakes go into the fridge to set the first layer up.  Then you take them out, and spoon out enough posset to fill up the cavity in your shortcakes.

All done!  Let’s see what Gilad thinks of them. The somewhat liquidy leftover posset from the bottom of the bowl was tasty!