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​Add Some Zest To Spring With Our Lemon Curd Recipe

​Add Some Zest To Spring With Our Lemon Curd Recipe

Posted by The Wares Team on 25th Feb 2020


If you’re well and truly fed up with winter now, with those long grey days and those never-ending storms and bouts of incessant rain, then you need something zingy to cheer you up. Of course, Spring isn’t really that far away now and the snowdrops, crocuses and daffodils are all popping out their colourful faces in our gardens at the moment - a promise of the good things to come in the weeks ahead.

If you need something bright, cheerful and supremely yummy to cheer you up, our blog post for today should be just the ticket. We’re going to show you how to make unbelievably scrumptious lemon curd - a real treat that never fails to delight. So grab some jam jars, and let’s get to it…
Our Favourite Lemon Curd Recipe



The beauty of lemon curd is that the process of making it is pretty simple and quick. Whilst you can find lemon curd recipes that include pulped apple to bulk it out a bit, we prefer the traditional approach. Here’s the recipe…


Ingredients:



4 large unwaxed lemons
4 large, free-range eggs
375g caster sugar
250g unsalted butter



Method:



Chop the butter into cubes and allow to stand to bring it to room temperature.
Zest and juice all of the lemons and set aside for a moment.
Whisk the eggs in a large pan and then add all of the other ingredients and heat on a medium setting, whisking continuously with a hand whisk until the mixture thickens, This should take around 6-8 minutes.
Turn the heat down and continue whisking for another minute or so.
Remove from the heat and pour into clean, sterilised glass jars. Place a wax disc on the top of each jar and seal the glass jars whilst the lemon curd is hot. Once cooled completely, label your jam jars and store in a cool place.

It’s important to remember that lemon curd is not the same as jam in terms of how long it will keep. Whilst you might have jam jars filled with jam from months ago that are still perfectly good, lemon curd only keeps for a matter of weeks and it needs to be kept in a cool place, or even in the fridge. That’s why most recipes only specify sufficient ingredients to fill one or two standard-sized jam jars. It’s better to make lemon curd in smaller quantities, but more often, rather than doing a really big batch.


Ideas For Using Your Lemon Curd



Now that you’ve got a few jam jars filled with delicious lemon curd, it’s time to think about how to use it all up. Of course, lemon curd is sublime spread on hot, buttered toast and we recommend that you make sure you use plenty of your lemon curd stash in precisely this way! It’s also brilliant stirred through Greek yoghurt, spooned onto ice cream, and smeared on pancakes. If you want to use some to bake with or to create something fancy for dessert, however, we’ve got some really special ideas for doing just that.

One of our favourite ideas for using lemon curd is to create a very sophisticated looking lemon mousse dessert. Just whip some double cream until it’s standing in stiff peaks, then divide it in half and fold in some lemon curd into one half of the whipped cream, to spread the flavour through it. Take some tall sundae glasses and spoon some lemon curd into the bottom. Next spoon in some of the lemon and whipped cream mixture, and finally spoon in some of the plain whipped cream. Top with some fresh or frozen blueberries, for a simple dessert that looks every bit as if it’s come out of the kitchen of a fancy restaurant.

Our next idea is just as simple and will have you wondering why you’ve never thought of doing it before! Simply take some ready-made puff pastry and cut out circles. Press a smaller cutter into the pastry circles, to form an inner ring - but don’t press all the way through. Score the centre of each case, and then bake for 15 minutes. One cooked, use a knife to carefully remove the central piece of pastry to leave a hole in the centre of each vol au vent. Sprinkle a little icing sugar over each case and then carefully spoon the lemon curd in. These are guaranteed to be party favourites, and are so simple to make!

Our final suggestion for an easy bake using lemon curd is lemon curd muffins. Just use your regular muffin base mix, leave out some of the sugar and replace with lemon curd, stirring it through the mixture to ensure the flavour spreads through the muffin mix. You could also add some white chocolate chips to the muffin mix for a really decadent treat!

Are you a lemon curd addict? Share your recipes with us on TwitterFacebook or Instagram - we’d love to hear from you!