Lemon curd

Friday, March 31, 2017

We prepare lemon curd - a custard based on a huge amount of lemon juice, egg yolks, sugar and butter. Thanks to the addition of lemon zest, this dessert comes out extremely fragrant, and butter makes it magically tender and velvety.

By the way, this is my favorite of all the types of Kurds that I have ever tried. If you are afraid that the amount of lemon juice will make the finished cream sour, don’t worry. It comes out completely balanced: the pleasant sourness is perfectly set off by the sweetness of sugar, while the butter introduces its notes of delicacy.

This custard based on new lemons can be served as an independent dessert (it is so tasty that I eat it without anything with a coffee spoon), and can also be used as a filling for shortbread baskets and tartlets. After cooling, this cream thickens perfectly, and after several hours in the cold, lemon curd becomes even more tender, smooth and quite thick. This custard is not bad with thin pancakes and plump pancakes, tender cheesecakes, crispy toast, airy biscuits or just slices of the freshest snow-white bread.

Ingredients:

Making a dish step by step:

The lemon curd recipe includes the following ingredients: lemon juice and zest, sweet sand, butter and egg yolks. 90 ml of juice and 1 teaspoon of zest comes from 1 large lemon.

Carefully wash the lemon and pour boiling water over it. After this, we roll it with effort on the table - this way the fruit will yield juice better. Using a small or large grater, remove the zest - the catchy top layer of the lemon, without affecting the snow-white layer (it is bitter).

Pour 60 grams of sugar into a small saucepan or saucepan and add the crushed zest.

Grind everything with a spoon or fork so that the lemon zest gives off its own scent better.

Next add 3 egg yolks (on average this is about 60 grams).

Mix everything, then squeeze the juice from the lemon using any convenient method. Remove the seeds. If you don’t have exactly 90 ml of juice, and you don’t want to start a new fruit, you can increase the amount of water by adding regular drinking water (though it’s better not more than a tablespoon).

Mix everything thoroughly.

Place 45 grams of butter in a saucepan.

Place the dishes on medium heat. A water bath is not needed in this lemon curd recipe - the yolks will not curdle due to the huge amount of acid and sugar. With constant stirring, cook the lemon custard until thickened - 2-4 minutes after boiling.

When there is a streak left on the spoon with curd from your finger that doesn’t move from its place, the cream is ready.

We rub it through a sieve to remove the lemon zest.

The lemon curd is ready - all you have to do is pour it into a suitable jar, close the lid and cool one hundred percent in the refrigerator.

In total, I get 170 grams of fragrant lemon curd.

It's very, very tasty, believe me. Better yet, check it out yourself – you’ll probably thank you later. Cook for your health, friends!

Lemon curd

Lemon curd is a sweet and sour cream made from lemon juice. In fact, this is the same custard (to be clear - British cream) in which egg yolks are brewed, only instead of milk, lemon juice and zest are used. Lemon curd can be used as the inside of profiteroles, for a layer of cheesecake, for sweet sandwiches, for sponge or shortbread cakes, as a sauce for pancakes, cheesecakes or toast and, in the end, is excellent as a topping for ice cream. Moreover, lemon curd can be added to rice and served as a sauce for meat. This is natural if you love unusual flavors and their combinations. Apart from the taste, Kurd looks extremely beautiful and bright. Of course, it will decorate virtually any culinary creations. In general, the cream is extremely suitable, not bad both in taste and in appearance.

Ingredients

lemon juice 100 ml
egg yolks 3 pcs
sugar 60 g
butter 45 g
lemon zest 1 pc.

100 ml of lemon juice comes from 2 medium lemons.

For the sweetest or least sweet lemon curd, we can increase or decrease the sugar.

Butter, in addition to being a flavor enhancer (fat helps enhance the transfer of taste), gives a velvety shine to the finished product and the correct texture. But if you really want, butter can be completely excluded from the recipe. With all this, the curd will lose its shine, become matte and thicker.

It’s completely easy to figure out that lemons can be replaced with oranges, tangerines, or limes. But this is a completely different story and the resulting cream will no longer have the corresponding lemon sourness.

The indicated amount of ingredients yields 270 ml of curd.

Manufacturing

We prepare all the necessary ingredients. Separate the yolks from the whites.

Using a grater, remove the zest from the lemon (the yellow upper part of the rind), trying not to touch the snow-white part of the rind.

Squeeze juice from lemon (100 g). By the way, before squeezing, do not forget to either roll the lemon on a hard surface of the countertop, or put the lemon in the microwave for 10 seconds. With these simple actions, the membranes around the membrane of the fruit, which contain juice, break or weaken, and lemon juice is squeezed out much easier.

Place butter (45 g) in a saucepan or small saucepan, add 3 egg yolks, sugar (60 g), lemon juice and zest.

Stir and place on medium heat on the stove. The most prudent cooks can use a water bath to cook curd. So, heat the mass, stirring constantly (preferably with a whisk or silicone spatula). If the “fire” is very powerful, the yolks may cook and the cream will have a corresponding egg flavor. Bringing it to a boil is not our goal, as steam begins to rise from the mass, reduce the power of the stove and cook over a leisurely “heat” for 8-10 minutes, stirring constantly. During cooking, the curd will thicken evenly.

Remove the curd from the heat and strain through a sieve, thereby getting rid of the zest and other heterogeneous inclusions. The curd will thicken as it cools. It comes out smooth, quite dense and a very nice blend. Pour the cream into a jar, close the lid and let it cool, then put it in the refrigerator. After standing in the refrigerator for several hours, the curd gains a good structure, becomes even thicker and tastier.

Lemon curd

Lemon curd is perhaps the most popular fruit cream in the confectionery world. And that's not mind-blowing, because it's brilliant: catchy, juicy, silky smooth and evenly sweet.

Traditional lemon curd recipe

The traditional recipe for confectioners of the French and American schools differs. At least, in the sources that I came across.

French is brewed without butter. It is added when the curd has cooled to 45 degrees, and then beat with a blender.

In the American version, the oil is immediately combined and heated with the rest of the ingredients.

I tried various methods and found no reason against the second option, although it is of course simpler, so I cook it this way.

How to add zest to lemon cream?

I've come across 3 methods.

— Previously, they constantly wrote that to achieve the greatest smell, you need to grind it with sugar.

— Later, I saw a professional confectioner’s idea of putting the zest in a sieve through which the brewed curd would be strained. In this case, the zest is usually removed in fairly wide strips.

— I have the most comfortable and extremely durable grater for citrus and spices Microplane . With its help, thin fragrant threads are obtained; I put them in the cream instead of all the ingredients.

If you make baked goods and desserts very often, look for frozen zest, it will help save time. But I don’t recommend the dry kind in bags; the freshest tastes better.

How to use lemon curd?

It is great both on its own and as part of various desserts.

- prepare lemon cream for the cake (remember the perfect lemon cake on the blog?),

- add Pavlova to the cake to compensate for the excessive sweetness of the meringue,

— make a French lemon tart or a South American lemon pie with meringue (do you understand how they differ?).

By analogy with lemon curd, cream is made from other citrus or sour berries. For example, in the photo in the 2nd jar there is an extremely tasty tangerine curd with tonka beans. Fundamentally! In any case, it is better to add lemon juice to citrus curd.

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Lemon curd

A common and reliable recipe for lemon curd for the inside of cakes, tarts, cupcakes and other desserts.

Lemon curd

What is lemon curd?

If we define it based on confectionery terminology, then it is a variation of custard.

And if you try to describe it with all your heart, then this is such a delicate cream with a pronounced lemon sourness, slight tartness of lemon zest and a cool, fresh citrus smell.

Cooking Kurd is absolutely easy.

And there are countless ways to use it!

We will need:

Lemon juice - 110 gr. (this is approximately the juice of 2 large lemons)
Lemon zest - 1 lemon
Sugar - 110 gr.
Yolks - 180-200 gr. (this is approximately the yolks of 9 - 10 eggs)
Butter 60 gr.

I would like to immediately create a few fundamental reservations:

Quantity of ingredients

You can create a half recipe, but, in principle, curd can be stored well for up to 1 week in the refrigerator. Therefore, you can create a complete recipe and use it as needed.

Citrus

You can eat any citrus fruits you like.

Lemon? Amazing! The pronounced sourness and gentle color will definitely blow your mind.

Lime? A good choice! Very similar to the lemon version, but with a slightly milder sourness.

Orange? Great! The sweetest and most catchy in color, it will literally lift your spirits!)))

Yolks or whole eggs?

There are many recipes for Kurd that use whole eggs, or whole eggs plus yolks. This is also possible. In this case, simply transfer the weight of the yolks to the weight of the eggs. This recipe will require approximately 4 small eggs.

BUT! In my personal opinion, Kurd on the testicles (in other words, both yolks and whites) is still not the same. In other words, this is possible, but if you want a perfect curd, smooth, shiny, creamy, then I advise you to make it with yolks. And use the whites for meringue (for example, make Pavlova).

Now let's get down to action:

Remove the zest from 1 lemon and squeeze the juice from the lemons. In a bowl, mix the juice, zest, sugar and add the yolks, lightly beating them with a fork first.
Leave the mixture for 30 minutes, covering it with film or a lid, so that the zest gives it its own taste and smell.
Then pour the mixture through a sieve into a small saucepan in which you will cook the curd. You need to pass the mixture through a sieve so that the zest and tails of the whites (which remain on the yolks) do not get into the curd.
Place the saucepan over medium heat and, stirring constantly, cook the curd until thickened. I do it this way: first I turn the hob power to medium, and as the mixture thickens, I reduce the heat to low. The mixture boils extremely quickly, in almost 3-5 minutes. Don’t forget to stir constantly so that there are no lumps.
Remove the mixture from the heat, add softened butter and stir thoroughly until the butter dissolves and the mixture becomes homogeneous. Cool the curd (covering it with film in contact) to room temperature and put it in the refrigerator. It is better to use the curd after it has stood in the cold for several hours.

It's that simple!

Bon appetit!

Pictured is lemon curd and salted caramel. Her recipe will also appear on the blog soon.

If you like the recipe, share it with friends and post a photo of the dessert with the hashtags #mypastryschool #cookingwithlenoy