Lemon Curd

I have always been so intrigued by lemon curd. And I only had it once! And not even in England (to me lemon curd just screams England). I had it at a friend’s place in Houston. England is like 45 minutes flight away and I had my first lemon curd in the USA.

She made pancakes and had several jams, honey and lemon curd to go with it. I’ve heard about it, but never had the chance to try so of course I had a pancake with lemon curd. And it was sooooooo good! It was tangy, sweet and creamy. Right there and then I decided that whenever I go to England I would try and find some to bring back home. Because I always travel with hand luggage (yes I am a very very light traveler) and due to flight restrictions I can never bring back any liquid. So till now I haven’t had any lemon curd =(

But that's about to change. I've been so adventures the last couple of weeks so I thought why not. Let’s give it a try. I have lemons sitting in my fridge anyway. So I went searching for a great lemon curd recipe. Google is my best friend when it comes to experimenting in the kitchen. It gives me answers to all my questions.

Most recipes were pretty much the same. You only need 4 ingredients to make lemon curd; lemons, sugar, butter and eggs. All ingredients everyone has in their kitchen. For this lemon curd I used:

-          100 gr room temperature butter

-          200 gr sugar

-          300 ml fresh lemon juice

-          1 teaspoon fresh lemon zest

-          2 eggs

-          2 egg yolks

My butter came straight out of the fridge so I had to cut them in small bits to they could come to room temperature faster.

While I was waiting for the butter I used about 1,5 lemon to get a teaspoon of lemon zest. I sprinkled some sugar on the zest so that they could release that nice lemony flavor.  

 

I don’t have a juicer so I always use a fork. I just stick the fork right in the lemon and twist and squish as much as I can. Works every time and saves me space in my pantry. Don’t bother to remove the seeds. It all goes through a strainer anyway. I had 3 big juicy lemons, which gave me around 300 ml juice.

I started to cream the butter and the sugar while the butter was not entirety on room temperature. Big mistake as bits of sugar coated butter was flying through my kitchen. And using a small bowl didn’t help either. So I put everything in a bigger bowl and used a fork to mix the butter with the sugar first. Then I use the mixer to smoothen it out.

Then I added the 2 whole eggs and 2 egg yolks one by one.

In goes the sugary lemon zest.

 

 

Last but not least the fresh lemon juice goes in. I used a strainer to get all the seeds and pulp out. Only the lemon juice is good enough.

Mix everything together and pour the whole mixture to a pot. At this point it doesn’t look appealing, but that will change once the heat hits it. 

I added half a teaspoon of salt and heated it on medium heat. It took at least 15 minutes before it started to thicken. I didn't want to put the heat too high and risk making scrambled lemon eggs. So I took my sweet time. Better safe then sorry.

You know the mixture has the right thickness when you leave a line on your spatula that keeps its shape, or when you blow in the mixture you get wrinkles. What you are looking for is a thick custard like mixture. 

Once you reached that stage pour the lemon curd in a clean jar and flip it upside down for a couple of minutes. This would help vacuum sealing it.

That looks so good! I can’t wait to try it. It is sitting in my fridge now, but I had a lick out of the pot after I poured it in a jar. It was so jummie! Very good lemon flavor and more tangy then sweet. Can’t believe how easy it was. Love homemade food!