Hi guys, I'm Laura Vitale and on this episode of Laura in the Kitchen I want to share with
you my lemon curd recipe. I've had a lot of people ask for this recipe over the years
and I'm not sure why I haven't done it sooner but it's definitely a great basic that I think
everyone should know how to make. You can use lemon curd in tons of different things.
You can eat it on it's own with maybe toast or pound cake, you can put it in desserts,
which I'm going to show you how to put it into a delicious trifle coming up on LauraintheKitchen
in a while, in a little bit, in a different episode. But today we are going to make some
good lemon curd. This recipe is foolproof, it's easy and I really think you're going
to enjoy it. Let me take you over the ingredients so we can get started.
You'll need some granulated sugar. I have some egg yolks and whole eggs in here. Some
unsalted butter that's been softened at room temperature. Some lemons and a pinch of salt.
That is it! It's super easy and simple. One thing I'm going to suggest if you're going
to be using the zest of a citrus, make sure you buy organic because that way I feel like
the flavour will just be much much better and you won't have a lot of stuff on the outside
of your lemons, and if you are using bigger lemons you will need three but since these
are a little bit smaller I am using four.
Okay, let's get started, it's really easy! In this bowl I am going to cream together
my sugar and my butter, much like we would be making cookie dough or standard regular
batter. Just going to start it with my spatula and then just switch to my whisk when we add
in the eggs. Going to actually add my salt now as well.
Looks good enough, going to add in my eggs and egg yolks. I mixed the two together just
to make things a little easier on myself. And now I'm going to switch to my whisk. Get
it all off there. And then just whisk it all until it's nicely combined.
That is looking beautiful. Now what I'm going to do is zest all four lemons - this is lemon
curd after all! So you want that really strong lemon flavour. And again if you are using
bigger lemons use three but since I'm using smaller ones I am using four lemons today.
You want to make sure to get just the yellow part of the lemon. Now what I'm going to do
is squeeze all of them in this little bowl over a sieve just to catch any of the little
pips that are in there. Seeds, pips, whatever you want to call them. I give them a gentle
with the palm of my hands to release the juice and then I take my fork and I squeeze, squeeze,
squeeze.
We've got our juice. Now this is the part where I can already picture all of you probably
getting frantic and "It's splitting! I don't know what to do!" If it splits, it's supposed
to, that's what it does. You just added lemon to this. It's going to look even worse once
you start to cook it. Now I'm going to pour this mixture - let me just grab my spatula
- into my saucepan and I'm going to cook this on low heat for about 10 minutes. A lot of
recipes will tell you to get a thermometer and check it for this temperature and that
temperature but the truth of the matter is, this is done when it has thickened. That's
it! It will take about 10 minutes. It will start to look worse before it looks better.
It will split and go all cottage cheese looking on you, but as it cooks it gets better and
better. So you're going to have to trust me on that. I'm just going to cook this on low
heat until it has thickened and coats the back of my spoon. That's it!
That looks gorgeous. I've had this on low heat, mine didn't even split. It just held
it's texture beautifully. Sometimes it splits and sometime it doesn't but if it does do
not panic. Just keep stirring and stirring and it will end up like this. I promise. This
is when you'll know it's done. The back of it coats the spoon really well and when you
run your finger down you can see how it stays separate. That's how you know your curd is
done. I've taken this off the heat.
Your lemon curd at this point is completely done. All it has to do is cool in the fridge
for and it will set and it won't be this runny. But look at that, I just want you to see the
colour. Look how beautiful that it, and that's a combination of using eggs and egg yolks.
They give us a really beautiful colour.
I'm going to taste really quick. This recipe is foolproof for a reason, it tastes incredible,
it's not too sweet, you can taste the fresh lemon, texture is fantastic, as it cools it
does set a bit more so it's going to be perfect. You can spread it on things. It's just a really
wonderful, all-purpose recipe that I think everyone should have in their recipe box because
it's a great one to have on hand. I'm going to show you how to use this in a beautiful
trifle here really soon but for now I'm going to let you go. I'm just going to pop this
into the fridge till whenever I need to use it. Make sure that when you wrap it with plastic
wrap the plastic is actually touching the surface of the lemon curd so it doesn't form
a skin.
But that's really about it. Let me know what some of your favourite ways are to use lemon
curd because I would love to apply those to future recipes here on LauraintheKitchen and
I love getting inspired by all of you so leave them in the comment section down below. Let
me know what other basic recipe you want to see next and I will see you next time. And
of course this will be on laurainthekitchen.com as always. I'll see you next time guys. Bye.