I’m not really sure why, but I keep seeing lemon curd pop up everywhere. To me, it always sounded stuffy and British. Something to be had with tea and crumpets. Totally not delicious.
I probably never should have had it. Really, never should have tried it. This stuff is amazing. So amazing that I made 2 types of curd in 2 days. (I made lemon curd, and accidentally broke a yolk, so I couldn’t keep those whites for merengues and then I made a cake that needed 5 whites. What is a girl to do? Make a second curd).
There are 5 gazillion recipes for curd out there. My searching and reading taught me this: You need about 2 times as much sweetener as juice, 4-6 egg yolks per half cup of juice and 2-6 tablespoons of butter. I was very scientific for my plain lemon curd and came up with a formula. 1 lemon+2 yolks+1 T butter+ 1/3 cup sweetner. Multiply this times the total number of lemons and you have all you need.
This is decadent, tart and sweet.
| Pomegranate Lemon Curd |
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- The juice of 2 lemons (about 1/2 of a cup)
- The zest of 2 lemons (about 2 tablespoons)
- The seeds of 1 pomegranate
- 1 cup sugar (agave nectar or honey will work too)
- 5 yolks
- 2 tablespoons of butter, diced
- Fill a saucepan with about 1 inch of water and bring it to a simmer. (If you are brave and promise to stir without so much as looking away from the pan, you could skip the double boiler thing and work directly over the heat. I work this way on my pastry cream (gasp!), and they always turn out ok. )
- In a heat-proof bowl that fits snugly over your saucepan without touching the bottom (I used the bowl from my mixer), whisk together the lemon juice, zest, pomegranate seeds, sugar and yolks.
- Place your bowl over the saucepan and start whisking. This is the long, slow, wish-it-would-hurry-up-because-you-want-to-taste part. Just keep whisking. Your curd will get foamy and then change colors. The bubbles will start getting stuck in the curd. Keep whisking. You want a trail to follow your whisk through the curd.
- Remove the bowl from the heat and stir in the butter.
- Press your curd through a strainer to catch the zest and seeds.
- Transfer to a bowl for the fridge and press plastic wrap into the top of the curd to keep it from forming a skin.
- After a few hours you can put it into a jar. It should keep for about a month in the fridge, and the National Center for Home Preserving says you should be able to freeze it for up to a year.
According to the Sugarbaby cookbook, If you want to use the curd as a tart filling, reserve 2 T of the juice and add 1 teaspoon of gelatine. Add this mixture to the curd after you remove it from the heat and before you add the butter.