Monday, January 3, 2011

Luscious lemon curd

Why would a Dutchy want to publish a recipe for lemon curd in English? Well, just because I love it! I found this recipe on the internet and made some slight alternations. Combine lemon curd with scones, or eat it the Dutch way and combine it with raisin bread or pancakes. When you want to combine it with double cream: it is not easy to find here in The Netherlands, you can use mascarpone cheese mixed with whipped cream (don't add sugar!) as an alternative.

Lemon curd, serves about 4 jars

  • 450 gram brown sugar
  • 425 gram dairy butter
  • 4 (organic) lemons
  • 4 eggs

Melt the butter and sugar slowly “au bain marie”. Make lemon zest from the peel of the lemons. Squeeze the lemons. Slowly add the zests and the juice to the butter and sugar.
Whisk the eggs. Slowly add the lemon-mixture to the whisked eggs. Heat the mixture slowly “au bain marie” and cook it slowly until the mixture is thick and smooth. Be careful not to overheat it! Transfer the mixture careful to sterilized jars and close them. Store the curd in a cold place.

Use the curd within a month.

P.s.: an easy way to sterilize jars: I just place the clean jars in a preheated oven and heat them for about 10 minutes at 100 °C. You can recycle all kinds of used jars, but be careful not to use jars for the conservation of jam or lemon curd that have been used for pickled or spicy food.