Friday, May 8, 2009

when life gives you lemons...

Zest them and juice them and make some curd. There are a million curd recipes floating around out there, but this is my favorite by far. Silky smooth but you can stand a spoon up in it.

I make huge batches of it for our lemon curd buttercream, but you can use it as pie filling, scone topping, or straight from the jar. And if your jar isn't quickly emptied from all those surreptitious spoons and fingers, it freezes really well, too.

Start with a pile of lemons - you'll want a cup and a half of juice. Zest them all before you juice them, and blend the zest with one and a third cups of sugar. In a stainless bowl, whisk the lemon sugar with 10 large egg yolks (save the whites!) and 4 large eggs. Place the bowl over simmering water, and keep stirring.

Once the sugar is dissolved (it won't feel gritty anymore), add the juice, and stir it constantly for around five minutes. At this point you'll see it thicken up, and it will feel more like you're stirring yogurt.

Remove it from the heat and add two sticks of butter, cut into small pieces so that it will melt quickly. Stir the butter into the curd, then strain it into a clean bowl to remove the lemon zest and any weird eggy bits. Then cool it completely, which will thicken it a little more.

Now it's ready to put into glass jars or freezer bags or buttercream (10 egg whites makes a perfect batch of Italian meringue buttercream, see?) or pie crusts or anywhere you like. YUM.