Simple Lemon Curd

This is no food blog, but since I could not find the recipe I wanted online, I thought it would be good to put it out there on the World Wide Web! Hopefully this helps those out there looking for a simple recipe for lemon curd like I was!

Recently, I saw a suggestion on Pinterest to put lemon curd in crepes. Yum! I love lemon and I love lemon curd. So, I thought I'd make some. However, my search online was not fun. There are so many recipes out there, many of them using a double boiler (which I don't have and I don't like using the bowl method), most of them straining the curd (do that many people really scramble the eggs? it seems like an easy thing to prevent), many of them adding the ingredients in different orders, and in general, most of them seemed more involved than I wanted in a simple lemon curd recipe! There was even a microwave version, but that one involved cooking it for one minute intervals, and the thought of sitting by the microwave and cooking it one minute at a time for 15 minutes sounded tedious! Also, it did not sound like you would be in very good control. Anyways, the problems people seemed to have were these:

1. Scrambled eggs. The recipes I found all used a double boiler and/or they strained the curd at the end to get out little bits of cooked egg. I felt like this could be avoided really easily by tempering the eggs and heating it on low.

2. Bitter tasting. I have read that when you cook the zest it tastes bitter. Some added the zest at the end, and so I chose to do this.

Finally I found a recipe that I could work with. It's Ina Garten's recipe (Barefoot Contessa on Food Network), and I also saw it on another blog. I liked this recipe the best of all my searching, but I still made changes. Here is my recipe, which turned out perfectly:

This is a picture from the blog I mentioned, Tried and Tasty. Just as this is no food blog, I am no food photographer!

Simple Lemon Curd


Ingredients

Zest of 3 large lemons (I used 5 small)

1/2 c. lemon juice (my five lemons almost made enough, so I used a bit of bottled juice)

1 1/2 c. sugar

1 stick (1/2 c.) butter

1/8 tsp. salt

4 extra-large eggs (I used 4 large and one yolk)



Zest the lemons and set zest aside. Juice the lemons (being sure to keep those seeds out!) and add into a 2 quart saucepan, along with the sugar, butter, and salt. Heat on low until butter and sugar are completely melted/dissolved. As that heats, whisk the eggs in a medium sized bowl until combined. Once the sugar mixture is heated, slowly temper the eggs by constantly whisking the eggs while very slowly pouring in the sugar mixture (I would pause often in my pouring to give the eggs a chance to heat up without overwhelming them). When you have added all the sugar mixture into the eggs, pour the new mixture back into the saucepan, and again heat it on low. Stir (or whisk) constantly for about 10-15 minutes (took me 15), until you can see whisk marks in the curd and it coats the back of a spoon. Remove from heat and add the zest. Pour into a clean bowl, and cover with plastic wrap, putting the wrap directly on the curd to prevent a skin forming. Cool to room temperature, then refrigerate up to one week. Makes about 3 cups.


With this method, you should have no problem with scrambled eggs nor any bitter taste. The key to making lemon curd is keeping it low and slow. I hope this helps others searching for a great tasting but simple recipe for lemon curd!