The Santanello’s

Lemon-Vanilla Bean Posset with Raspberries

Our Story

My husband and I have been making this dessert for about ten years, and it’s become a special tradition for us. For our honeymoon, we traveled to the island of Mo'orea in French Polynesia, where we purchased fresh Tahitian vanilla beans. My husband loves to cook, so when we returned home, he searched for the perfect recipe to highlight the vanilla, and that’s how we discovered this posset, which is a “creamy dessert.”

Using fresh vanilla is a must, it adds so much flavor! This dessert is light, fresh, and pretty easy to make. Sometimes if we are feeling fancy, we add a raspberry sauce to the top or add as a layer in the glass, but that is not necessary 😊. We enjoy making this recipe every year on our wedding anniversary. We hope you like it too!

Ingredients

Servings: 4 | Total Time: 3hr, 15 mins (Prep Time: 15 mins, Cook Time: 10 mins, Time to set: 3hrs) | Difficulty: Easy

  • 1 cup raspberries

  • 2 1/2 cups heavy cream

  • 1/2 cup plus 1/2 teaspoon sugar

  • 1 vanilla bean (we get the whole beans in a jar from Sprouts, Cost Plus or Whole Foods)

  • 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (about 2 lemons)

Directions:

  • Step 1:

    Reserve 4 berries for garnish and divide the remaining berries among four 8-ounce mason jars or tempered glasses.

  • Step 2

    Put 2 cups of the heavy cream and 1/2 cup of the sugar in a small saucepan. (You should have some leftover heavy cream and sugar, you will need this when it is time to serve.) Split the vanilla bean, scrape the seeds into the cream and drop in the bean halves. Here is a video demonstration on how to split the bean and scrape the seeds.

  • Step 3

    Bring the mixture to a boil over medium to medium-high heat and boil for 4 minutes, stirring occasionally, and watching over it to make sure that it doesn't boil over (Which can happen really easily! Do not step away and stir it constantly).

  • Step 4

    While stirring, use the spoon to mash the vanilla seeds against the side of your pan so there are not vanilla bean chunks in your dessert.

  • Step 5

    Remove from the heat, discard the vanilla bean halves, and stir in the lemon juice.

  • Step 6

    Divide the cream among the glasses (the berries will float up to the top). Refrigerate until set. This should take at least 3 hours or you can let them set overnight.

  • Step 7

    Before serving, gently whip the remaining 1/2 cup of heavy cream with the remaining 1/2 teaspoon sugar, and dollop over the possets. Top each serving with one of the reserved raspberries.

  • Bonus

    Sometimes we add raspberry sauce to the top before serving or we do layers of raspberry sauce and vanilla cream in the cup/jar. If you do layers just make sure the raspberry sauce is completely cool. A simple raspberry sauce recipe is below.

Easy Raspberry Sauce Recipe

Ingredients:

Directions:

  1. In a small saucepan over medium heat, stir raspberries, sugar and water together until the sugar is dissolved. Heat the mixture until it boils while stirring often.

  2. In a small cup, combine the cornstarch and two tablespoons of water. Mix well. Pour this into the boiling raspberry mixture. Stir and boil over medium-low heat for 4 minutes or until the mixture has thickened a bit.

  3. Allow the mixture to cool (we put it in the fridge if serving on top or in the freezer to cool quickly if we are using it to layer in the glass).