Where have I been? life has interrupted me several times in the past weeks and has made it difficult to blog – Plus, my husband and I are trying to lose weight and it’s been hard to make “naughty stuff” if you can’t eat it all!
As I mentioned before, I am on the food committee for our church’s Christmas Tea – Scones, served with Lemon Curd, Devonshire Cream the works! Thankfully I am not alone in the endeavor and help has been easy to find! So happy!
I volunteered to make the lemon curd for the tea, as I already had experience making it with my wonderful friend Robbin, who headed up the Christmas Tea Food Prep for years – but alas all good things must come to and end and my friend is moving to Washington State. Her touch will be dearly missed!
Lemon Curd is actually not hard to make, just expect that your arm is going to fall off stirring. I made one big batch today and have 8 more batches to follow. A large batch will yield 9 cups of lemon curd. That serves 72 (2 Tbsp size) servings. The end goal: Lemon Curd for 600! Lemon Curd is served with warm scones (Cranberry Scones – recipe coming soon). Living in Southern California has it’s benefits. One of them is fresh lemons. My friend KC has a wonderful lemon tree in her yard and last summer she invited me to pick lemons. Her lemons were large- some of them almost the size of grapefruit. I did research that you can freeze fresh lemon juice and lemon zest – so that is what I did. Thank you KC for your generous contribution.
Here is the recipe for a single recipe (not the batch- 3x the original recipe)
Lemon Curd
Yield 3 cups
24 (2 Tbsp) servings
Ingredients:
- 5 eggs
- 2/3 cup lemon juice (approximately 2-3 lemons)
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 4 tsp lemon zest (approximately 1 lemon)
- 1/2 cup butter, softened (1 stick)
Preparation:
Place the eggs, sugar, lemon zest, and lemon juice in a sauce pan. (To zest, invest in a good micro-plane it makes the grating of the lemon easy – zest by the way is grated lemon peel, so wash your lemons first).
Use an immersion blender to combine the egg, sugar, lemon mixture (Immersion blenders cost around 30-50 dollars and are a great investment for a kitchen). The mixture will be foamy.
Place the pot over medium heat, stirring constantly with a whisk in a circle eight fashion. The bubbles will slowly subside and the mixture will thicken.
Continue stirring until it comes to a good boil.
Turn your burner off and remove the curd from the heat.
Cut the softened butter into smaller chunks and add a few at a time and mix them into the lemon curd with a whisk until the butter is completely dissolved. Finish with remaining butter. Whisk to combine.
Pour the lemon curd into a plastic container and allow to cool completely before covering with a lid and cooling in the refrigerator.
NOTES: Lemon Curd will keep for 1 week in the refrigerator or can be frozen for up to 3 months.
In case you were making a big batch (say you really love your friends and wanted to make them some for Christmas) Here are the ingredients you will need:
- 15 eggs
- 2 cups lemon juice (fresh squeezed is best)
- 3 cups sugar
- 1/4 cup lemon zest
- 1 1/2 cups of butter (3 sticks)
Follow the directions above.
Just in case you wanted to know how many ingredients you need to feed 600:
135 eggs, 18 cups fresh squeezed lemon juice, 27 cups of sugar, 28 sticks of butter, 3 1/2 cups lemon zest
Ingredients
In a heavy saucepan
Well blended
stir constantly over medium heat
Thickened Curd
Bring to boil
Off Heat add butter
Finished Product
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