Festive fruit cups - a guide

The Christmas Menu #4

Welcome back to The Christmas Menu #4. Last week, we leaned into the festive season with Duck à le Kumquat and an elegant Concorde dessert. This week, I’m serving up a collection of fruit-filled desserts—or, as I like to call them, fruit cups. They’re deceptively simple to prepare yet carry an understated elegance, perfect for the Christmas table.

And if, like me, you’ve left holiday shopping to the eleventh hour, why not gift something truly thoughtful? (Forgive the self-promotion.) A year’s subscription to A Good Table—now officially a bestselling newsletter. To make gifting easier, I’ve designed a printable gift certificate for you to download below.

Oh, and this is a rather long post, so if your email cuts out, you can view it in full on the website or app—or perhaps print it out and enjoy it like a food supplement from the weekend paper.

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Growing up, it was practically a law in our house to serve no fewer than two desserts—and often as many as five—on holidays and special occasions. But this abundance of sweets didn’t mean endless toil. Confections such as cheesecakes, shortbreads, possets, fudges, ices and flavored creams were often prepared days in advance, leaving only the simple joy of arranging them beautifully on a table adorned with foraged winter branches, bowls of nuts, trays of clementines, and ruby-red pomegranates from the market.

When family and friends descend upon us (in this case, my husband, parents, and me) for holiday gatherings, there’s no time to wrestle with the oven or fret over delicate, fiddly pastries. No, instead, I stick to the simple cooking philosophy passed down through my family - if you use good quality ingredients, you can let nature do the work. Enter my fruit cups. Though, to be honest, calling them ‘fruit cups’ doesn’t do them justice—these creations are playful, elegant, and utterly enchanting. Presented in the hollowed shells of fruit, arranged on a silver tray piled with ice, these desserts are guaranteed crowd-pleasers. Children adore them, and even your perpetually critical great-aunt will be struck momentarily speechless—a holiday miracle in itself. Best of all, they can be prepared well ahead of time, freeing you from the chaos of any last-minute kitchen theatrics.

Fruit possets of every kind, made even better with a brûléed top

1. Method

There are countless ways to prepare fruit cups, and if you have a method that never fails, by all means, stick to it. For me, however, there are three foolproof approaches I return to time and time again:

The Posset

A festive fruit posset bowl

This method is as simple as it is reliable. Heat cream and sugar gently in a pan, on the stove, for just a few minutes. Then, pour the warm mixture into a bowl of freshly squeezed citrus juice—clementine, lemon, lime, or even strained passion fruit pulp work well. The magic happens quickly as the mixture thickens on contact. I prepare my fruit cups in advance, setting the shells in muffin tins, before filling with the posset mixture. A few hours in the refrigerator and they’re perfectly set. If time allows, I sprinkle the tops with sugar and brûlée them just before serving.

Easy ice cream

Christmas cake ice cream - totally wild

This recipe is as straightforward as it gets: heavy cream, condensed milk, and whatever flavorings take your fancy. A little citrus syrup? Candied orange peel? Ginger? Cherries? Toss them in, and you’re good to go. During summer, I pivot to refreshing granitas—swapping a cream base for water—but as it’s the season of festive indulgence, we lean unapologetically into cream, sugar, and every available molecule of lactose.

Tastes a bit like birthday cake ice cream, but with a festive twist.

Whipped creams

Who says whipped cream can’t be an entire dessert? Not me. I whip cream with mascarpone and fold in a few tablespoons of fruit syrup. Lemon and pomegranate are my personal favorites, but any fruit-forward syrup works. The mascarpone stabilizes the mixture beautifully, allowing it to keep for up to 3-4 days in the refrigerator, making it an ideal make-ahead dessert.

One of my favorite desserts to make using the whipped cream is lemon tiramisu with amaretti. These perfectly sized biscuits nestle wonderfully inside a lemon. I soak them in limoncello, then pipe in layers of lemon mascarpone whipped cream, creating a dessert that’s delightfully semi-freddo-esque—just the right balance of elegance and whimsy for the Christmas table.

Lemon tiramisu with amaretti and lemon mascarpone cream, semi-frozen and utterly delightful

2. Flavor

When making the whipped cream or possets, simplicity is key. After all, when you’ve tasted the brilliance of an in-season clementine, why complicate it with extra flavor pairings? To sharpen the citrus punch, I use both zest and juice. The zest provides that pleasurable lip-puckering, tongue-tingling astringency.

3. Presentation

For flair, serve your possets, ice cream or whipped cream in hollowed-out fruit shells. It’s delightful, charming, and just fussy enough to make people think you’ve gone above and beyond. As for the possets, if you really want to go all out, when nearly ready to serve, sprinkle a little sugar on top of the posset mixture and then brûlée with a kitchen blow torch. That said, if delicately spooning cream into 20 lemon halves feels too troublesome take the path of least resistance: ramekins, martini glasses, or even one large container. Crush some ginger or lemon biscuits for a crunchy topping and scatter liberally as you serve. The touch of drama will distract your guests from the fact that this dessert was, in essence, child’s play to make.

The recipes in today’s newsletter are designed to be versatile and very easy to adapt. You’ll also find component recipes, such as the lemon syrup and whipped mascarpone cream, which can elevate just about anything you decide to make. On the menu:

1. Passion fruit and lime posset cups (my favorite)

2. Lemon posset cups

3. Lime posset cups

4. Clementine posset cups

5. Lemon syrup

6. Lemon mascarpone whipped cream

7. Lemon amaretti tiramisu cups

8. Easy vanilla ice cream base

9. Christmas cake ice cream (insanely good!)

All these recipes are also available as downloadable PDFs—hurrah!