When I discovered that the lemon curd that I had been planning to fill Mom’s Lemon-Chocolate Birthday Cake with was a relic from my trip to London (that would be a trip that I took a year and a half ago), I thought I’d just go ahead and wash out the jar and fill it with some homemade stuff.
The key to making your own lemon curd is step 4 (below): when you whisk the egg yolks and then the egg whites into the butter, you need to make sure that the butter is melted, but not too hot (or the eggs will cook, and lemony scrambled eggs is not exactly the point).
LEMON CURD (based on this recipe)
What you need:
1 stick butter
2 eggs, divided
2 lemons, zested
3/4 cup sugar
What you do:
1. Melt the stick of butter in a medium saucepan with a heavy bottom.
2. While the butter melts, combine the sugar and lemon zest in small bowl. Add the juice from both lemons (be sure to strain out the seeds).
3. Whisk the egg whites into the sugar/lemon juice mixture.
4. Once the butter is melted (but not too hot, or your eggs will cook), whisk in the egg yolks, then lower the heat and add the egg white/sugar/lemon juice mixture.
5. Lower heat and cook, stirring constantly with a heat-proof spatula, until mixture thickens enough to coat the back of the spatula. Immediately remove from heat and store.
