Possets from Derbyshire: Advent #13

Time is short; here’s an Advent newsletter to match. (The next one will be the last of the series because I can’t leave it at thirteen!)

Alison Uttley’s Christmas possets from Recipes From an Old Farmhouse:

“A starved child was a very cold child and I often came home from my long walk from school starved in the winter nights. A posset of hot milk and bread cut into small squares with a dash of rum and some brown sugar brought colour into my cheeks. Milk was curdled with ale to make a Christmas posset. Spices were added, cloves and cinnamon, and a grate of nutmeg and brown sugar. The posset was mulled on the hot stove, in a pewter tankard, and poured into smaller mugs of pewter when ready. The ale curdled the milk and made a froth like lambswool, the old froth of roast apples once used in possets.”

Here’s Felicity Cloake on making the perfect lemon posset.