Homemade Lemon Curd
Like sunshine on a spoon, this homemade lemon curd has the ability to transport you to a faraway sunny tropical island, if you let it. 😉 Creamy, tarty, and the perfect topping for just about any cookie, scone, or biscuit, this curd might just be exactly what you need in your life right now. I know I’ll never go back to store-bought curd again!
If you’ve been following this blog for any length of time, you’ll know I have a thing for citrus; lemon, specifically. There’s just something about the fresh lemony taste of this juicy fruit that puts a smile on my face (and waters my tastebuds!) Does it get any fresher (and brighter) than lemon? I say nay.
Within the past few months, I’ve been baking French macarons–took a class and everything to learn how to make them. They’re finicky little buggers and I highly recommend taking a class if you want to learn how to make them correctly. Thus far I’ve made vanilla, salted caramel, chocolate, Fruity Pebbles, raspberry, pistachio…I think that’s it. Finn has been asking me to make a lemon version for quite some time so I decided to tackle that a couple weeks ago. The thing with macarons is that they’re not super flavorful unless you add some sort of filling. I knew I could just do a lemon buttercream filing, but again, it wouldn’t be super flavorful so I decided to make some lemon curd for the inside of the macaron. Having never made it before, I was really surprised that lemon curd really isn’t a hard thing to make. I took a couple pictures with my phone…totally slipped my mind to get some finished pictures with my camera, but adding this homemade lemon curd MADE that lemon French macaron. Amazing.
One thing with making French macarons is that you have a lot of egg yolks left over. And that’s one of only five ingredients you need to make this delicious curd. So it was really perfect that I made it along with some macs–nothing went to waste!
I’ve since made a few batches of the curd and have been enjoying it on lots of different things, like these butter cookies. The butter cookies happen to be gluten free, so it makes for a perfect little treat if you have a gluten sensitivity, since the curd is also GF. It just elevates a regular cookie to something bursting with citrus flavor. So so good.
So even if we can’t be on a warm, sunny beach right now, you CAN whip up a batch of this homemade lemon curd, close your eyes, savor every bite, and imagine the salty wind in your hair and waves pounding the shore. Now THERE’S a mental image for ya! 😉 Go enjoy some fresh lemon curd and you’ll be wondering why you’ve never made it before.
- In a small saucepan, add an inch or two of water and set on stovetop on high until it boils. Once boiling, reduce heat to low to keep it at a slow simmer. In a double boiler (just a bowl over top the saucepan), whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, zest, and lemon juice until completely blended. Continue to mix for about 10 minutes until thickened. (Make sure to continuously mix to keep the eggs from cooking.) You may need to increase the temperature to thicken the curd.
- Remove from heat and whisk in butter until completely incorporated. Pour curd into a glass jar and cover the top with plastic wrap (directly touching the top of the curd to prevent a skin from forming. You can remove the plastic after the curd is cold.) Keep refrigerated for up to about 10 days or freeze for up to 6 months (thaw in fridge overnight before using).
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