I have always loved lemon curd.
On the morning of our wedding, it was my breakfast of choice: a slice of my favourite organic wholemeal loaf, toasted and spread with butter and lemon curd, kindly prepared for me by my chief bridesmaid, my sister. (Food often does taste better when someone else has made it!)
Lemon curd on toast kept me going through the excitement and nerves of the ceremony, and socialising and posing of the drinks reception, which was lucky as the platter of canapés we had been assured would be set aside for us, the bride and groom, never did materialise.
I always have a jar in the fridge and am often on the look out for the ultimate lemon curd so I’m not quite sure why it took me so long to try making it myself.
Now that I have, I’m pretty sure it will be a permanent fixture. It’s just so much better than even the very best shop-bought versions and, as with anything you make yourself, you can tweak it to exactly your taste: a little tarter, a little sweeter, a little heavier or lighter on the lemon zest.
I came across this recipe as a filling for a lemon cake with mascarpone cream icing. The cake was a disappointment – heavy and close-textured, as American cake recipes turn out for me time and time again – and the icing didn’t do much for me either but the lemon curd was a revelation. I made it again a couple of weeks later: the benchmark of a great recipe. Lemon curd on toast takes some beating, but a dollop on plain greek yogurt for breakfast is possibly my favourite way to eat it right now.
After I made lemon curd for the first time, my mum told me that her mum, my Nana Joyce, would often make some if she had egg yolks left over. I sadly never had the privilege of meeting her or of sharing in her cooking wisdom but I like to think that she would have been making lemon curd this exact same way.
Zingy, unctuous homemade lemon curd
Ingredients
- 60ml lemon juice (1/4 cup measure)
- 2 tsp finely grated lemon zest (a microplane is what you want here)
- 70g sugar (1/3 cup measure)
- 4 egg yolks
- 40g salted butter
Method
This couldn’t be easier. Put all the ingredients in a small saucepan and stir continuously over a low heat until it thickens. This may take 20-30 minutes. Tip it into a jam jar and leave to cool. Keep it in the fridge.