This dreamy creamy, zingy, and bright lemon curd is the thing to cheer you up on a dull day. This lemon curd will whip up in a few wits with very few ingredients. The first thing you need to do is pulse the sugar and the lemon zest, the first thing that it will do is break the lemon zest pieces very small and the second thing is that it will get the oil from the zest into the sugar and infuse a lot of flavours.
If you don’t have a food processor, just mince your lemon zest really fine and then scrunch it up in a plastic bag with the sugar in it will work just fine. For the lemon juice, you will need very fresh lemons then strain the lemon juice into a bowl and measure about half a cup or about 100 ml. Get a nice heavy pot because with a thicker pot, the heat will transfer more gently but if you get a very thin pot, the lemon will start scorching on the sides.
Add six egg yolks into the heavy bottom pot then add the pulsed sugar and lemon zest then give it a whisk really well until the sugar starts to dissolve. Pour in the lemon juice while continuing to whisk everything and once done, transfer the pot onto a low heat and continue to stir until it thickens up.
Once you see that the curd starts to thicken up and slowly bubble, take it off the heat. Once your curd is all nice and thick, drop in one and a half cups of cold butter and cut into small pieces. The butter will help cool things down and will also help the curd thicken up when set in the fridge. Once all incorporated, pour the curd into a bowl to chill for a while or you could pour the curd directly into a mason jar or something resealable.
If you are using it to fill a cake, cupcakes, or some other purpose, let it cool completely before using it. You can let the lemon curd chill in the fridge and use it whenever you want to.
Ingredients;
- 1 cup granulated sugar 200g
- 2 tbsp lemon zest of two lemons
- 6 egg yolks
- 1/2 cup lemon juice minus one tablespoon, 100mL
- 1/2 cup butter unsalted, cold
Instructions;
- Separate the yolks from the whites. You can freeze the egg whites for later or make a Swiss meringue buttercream with them!
- Zest the lemons. If you have a food processor handy, pulse the lemon zest and sugar together to really extract all the oils from them but this step is not a must.
- Juice the lemons until you have about half a cup of lemon juice. Don’t forget to strain out the seeds.
- Strain egg yolks into a pot and beat lightly with a wire whisk. Whisk in the sugar and give it a good mix until lighter in colour. Stir in the lemon juice gradually.
- Heat on low, while stirring constantly with a wire whisk until the mixture thickens, just starts to bubble and coats the back of a wooden spoon.
- Remove the pot from heat, then add the cold, cubed butter and mix until melted.
- This is optional but I like to strain the final mixture to remove any bits of zest, etc. The final curd will be silky smooth and amazing.
- Transfer the curd to a sealable container or bowl. If the string is in a bowl make sure to cover the surface with plastic wrap to prevent skin from forming.
