Recipe: Lemon curd

Curds are a type of stirred custards made with eggs, sugar, fruit juice and butter. Sugar is essential to create the emulsion with the eggs and the butter.

For this reason, curds are usually flavoured with acids, and this recipe is the most classic of all: lemon curd.

I’ve used the lemon curd many times as tart filling, but, oh, how it’s great on toasted bread! The relatively-high quantity of butter it contains allows the final cream to be perfectly spreadable. And yummy! (No, don’t worry, the curd won’t taste like butter!) 🙂

This recipe comes from the book “On baking” and I love it because it’s very balanced in terms of tartness and sweetness.

Lemon curd

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Ingredients

120ml	Lemon juice
195g	Granulated sugar
4g	Lemon zest (grated fine)
120g	Eggs (~2 large eggs)
180g	Unsalted butter (room temperature)

Directions

Combine the lemon juice, the lemon zest, the eggs and the sugar in a saucepan (or better: in a bowl over a pan of simmering water)

Keep the saucepan on medium heat, stirring often

When the mixture is warmer than 50°C, start whisking constantly and vigorously and bring to a boil for one minute. The mixture will thicken like a pastry cream.

Remove from the heat, place the lemon curd in a large container, covered with plastic wrap and refrigerate (or chill quickly over an ice bath) till around 50°C

Add the diced butter in 4-5 times and emulsify the mixture either with a spatula or, better, with an immersion blender

Note

The lemon curd can be used immediately to fill tart shells or it can be chilled and stored in the refrigerator for a few days
Refrigerated lemon curd is excellent also spreaded on toasted bread as a breakfast treat