It was raining lemons from my mother’s lemon trees when I visited her. Roaming around her garden, one just picked up the ripe, fallen lemons to use. In fact, that is the only produce that we get to use considering the number of fruit bearing trees that she has in her garden. All the other fruits are grown with love but offered to the guests from the avian and animal kingdom. The various monkeys, squirrels, parrots and host of birds leave only her citrus fruits alone due to their sour taste.
Now how can you let such plump, juicy, not to beat organic lemons go to waste. After a lot of thinking, I decided that Lemon Curd was the thing to make. Not only do I love the tangy flavour of this citrus spread, but its uses are many and varied and can be used in many, many recipes.
There are many recipes with various versions available for Lemon Curd. Most of them use eggs, but I also wanted to make Lemon Curd without eggs for vegetarians. After researching many recipes, I adapted the recipe for Lemon Curd With Eggs from Cubes n Juliennes and Lemon Curd Without Eggs from Flours & Frostings.
Lemon Curd With Eggs
Ingredients ~
1 cup sugar
¾ cup lemon juice
4 eggs
75 gms butter
Method ~
- Fill a saucepan with water and simmer the water.
- Place a glass bowl over the sauce pan filled with water. Make sure the water does not touch the bottom of the pan.
- Combine the sugar, eggs and lemon juice in the glass bowl.
- Stir the mixture in the glass bowl continuously with a whisk or it will curdle.
- Stir for about 8-10 minutes.
- The mixture will thicken up to a sauce consistency.
- Take it off the heat and add the butter. Whisk it in till its melted completely and well blended.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, letting it touch the surface. This prevents a skin from forming.
- Let it cool and then refrigerate. It can be stored in the fridge for a week.
Lemon Curd Without Eggs
Ingredients ~
½ cup butter
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup lemon juice
½ cup condensed milk
2 tbsp cornflour
2 tbsp water
Method ~
- Combine the butter, lemon juice and sugar in a sauce pan.
- Cook the mixture in the pan over medium heat.
- Once the mixture comes to a boil, cook for 4-5 minutes, stirring all the time.
- Mix the cornflour and water. Add this paste to the mixture in the saucepan and cook for a further 3-4 minutes till it thickens into a custard like consistency.
- Take it off the heat and whisk in the condensed milk, till fully combined.
- Pour the lemon curd into a glass bowl and cover the surface with plastic wrap, touching the surface to prevent a skin from forming.
- Refrigerate and use within a week.
Lemon Curd
Sttudio 292 – Test Kitchen
Lemon Curd with eggs vs Lemon Curd without eggs
Lemon Curd with eggs
Ingredient list had just 4 items
It took 8 minutes to thicken
Total cooking time 12 minutes
The consistency was like thick custard
It held its shape
Clean, soft lemon colour
Taste a little less tart
Lemon Curd without eggs
The ingredient list had 6 items
It took 5 minutes to thicken
Total cooking time 8 minutes
Consistency was less thick, like thin custard
Did not hold a stiff shape
A little less bright lemon colour, influenced by the colour of the condensed milk
Taste was nice and tart
After licking many spoons while taking the pictures, I must say I was partial to the Lemon Curd without the eggs. The flavour of the lemons shone through. Though if one was to eat either, without knowing the difference, I’m sure they could not distinguish between the two. I also left out the lemon rind, firstly as my lemons had very thin skin, secondly the taste of the lemon juice had a bit of bitterness already in it.
The recipe for Lemon Curd with eggs can be used in recipes where the finished dish could be left out without it spreading, whereas the recipe for Lemon Curd without the eggs can be best used in dishes which need refrigeration as it keeps its shape while cold.
Hope you will try these recipes according to your preference with eggs or without. Do let me know the variations you did to the recipe and how the taste was.
Happy cooking. Enjoy.
These recipes are by Shivani Khanna
All pictures are personal images of Sttudio 292
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