Lemon Curd

I've never made lemon curd and quite honestly can't remember if I've ever eaten it or not. If I did it was surely back in the days when I was a child and every bakery sold lemon curd tarts and we kids would sometimes have enough pennies in our pockets to buy ourselves a treat. We never had lemon curd at home of that I'm certain and so, to be completely honest, I wasn't even sure if I liked it.

Anyhow it came about that I was chatting to Violets the other day and I mentioned to her that our lemon tree was so loaded with fruit I was having a job using it all up. The branches are literally drooping under their burden of large and juicy lemons. So when Violets suggested lemon curd, and very kindly gave me her recipe, I was suddenly eager to try it particularly as there wasn't so much sugar involved as some that I've seen. So using that as a starting point, and also referring to a recipe of Nigella's with an easy method that unusually didn't involve stirring over a pan of water, I decided it was time to bite the bullet.

The first thing I did was zest three large lemons using a zester rather than a grater as that always results in half the zest getting stuck in the holes. This I then finely chopped using a small medialuna, or mezzaluna as Nigella calls it using the Italian name. As I was using only three lemons I juiced them by hand. Using the KA I beat together 110g sugar, 2 eggs and 2 egg yolks (as I happened to have two left over from making the macaroons) until the sugar had dissolved. I then lightly beat in 50g of melted butter, the zest and juice. This mixture I poured into a heavy-based small cooking pot and placed it over a low heat with a diffuser underneath to ensure slow and even cooking.

Being aware of the risk of curdling I stayed by the pot from start to finish, stirring constantly. At first it was like stirring water and it got a bit boring to say the least. I was fleetingly tempted to remove the heat diffuser and up the temperature a little but I resolutely resisted the impulse, not wanting to mess things up at this late stage. So I stuck at it and, just when I was thinking it would never come together, it slowly started to thicken and began to coat the sides of the pot. This is when it's important to keep stirring, working the wooden spoon around the bottom of the pot and incorporating the coating on the sides. I wasn't sure when to stop but when it was reasonably thick I took it off the heat and continued stirring for a few minutes before pouring it, gleamingly yellow, into a small Kilner jar. I thought to myself that with the eggs it will thicken still more when it is cold just like custard, and that's in fact what happened.


Of course, I couldn't resist running my finger around the inside of the cooking pot before dropping it into hot sudsy water and what a cook's treat it turned out to be. This is marvellous stuff, gloriously yellow, tangy and not too sweet. I shall try it tomorrow on hot buttered toast but also be looking for other ways to use it. Now instead of lamenting over our abundance of lemons I'm happy I have plenty more to make this again and again. Oh, and I am sure that if I had ever had a bakery shop lemon curd tart that tasted anywhere near as good as this I would have remembered, which I don't. Thank you, Vi!