lemon curd – Ali Does It Herself

Lemon Bread Pudding

Here’s yet another recipe for trying to get rid of the massive amount of lemon pudding/curd I have left. Also a recipe for dealing with a lazy breakfast when you still have weird leftovers from the holidays. Here I have some of my pudding, half a panettone (my favourite fruity egg bread), some cream, and some eggs.

Preheat your oven to 350°F and butter up a baking dish.

Crack 4 eggs into a bowl and whisk ’em up.

Pour in a dollop or two of the cream, and add some vanilla and some pumpkin pie spice (or cinnamon or whatever) and give it a beating.

Grab your panettone. Inhale the gorgeous fruity aroma.

Then rip it to shreds and drop some of the bits into the baking dish. Add a few dollops of pudding.

Then add some more panettone. And more dollops of pudding.

Then when you’re done/you’ve filled the dish, pour your eggy/cream mixture all over the whole thing.

Let it soak in for a minute.

Then pop it in the oven for about 45 minutes, until the middle is solid. If it starts to brown too much on the top while you’re waiting for the interior to solidify then cover it up to keep it from burning.

Let it sit for a few minutes after taking it out of the oven so that you don’t burn your face off.

Then serve for breakfast with a bit of maple syrup or some whipped cream!

Orange Curd

I had a ton of egg yolks left over from a previous project.

And four oranges that were starting to dry out and look a little forlorn.

And as we know, lemon curd may be my very favourite thing (it’s hard to tell, though, as I have a lot of favourite things). So why not experiment with some orange curd? I figure if I balance the sweetness of orange as opposed to lemon it should work out okay.

So before you start, cut up about 3/4 cup butter into tablespoon-sized pieces and pop that back in the fridge. If you like your curd a little salty, use salted butter, but if you like it super sweet, use unsalted butter. But either way, make sure it’s cold.

In a medium saucepan, whisk together 8-10 egg yolks, 1/4-1/2 cup sugar (depending on how sweet your oranges are), 4 tablespoons lemon juice, the juice of 4 oranges, and the zest of 2 oranges.

Heat on medium, stirring constantly, until the mixture starts to thicken. If you heat it too high, too fast, you will curdle it and that’s no good. We want the yolks to cook slowly, for about 10 minutes. Make sure to scrape down the sides of the pot often.

It will begin to coat the back of a wooden spoon. When it’s nice and thick, raise the heat a bit and bring it to a simmer (not a boil), stirring again, for about 2 minutes.

Remove the pot from the heat and take your butter from the fridge. Working one piece at a time, add butter chunks to the mixture and stir until they are fully melted. This has the dual effect of cooling the hot curd and also adding some fat to the mixture for easy setting.

When all the butter is finally added and melted, your curd will be smooth and thick.

Pour it into a bowl or clean jar and place some plastic wrap on the surface of the hot curd so that a skin doesn’t form.

Pop it in the fridge to cool completely. This makes about 2 1/2 cups of curd.

Lemon Bars

After creating the heaven that was the hazelnut dacquoise the other day I found myself with four egg yolks kicking around and not a clue as to what to do with them. But then I found this awesome post by Food & Whine about what to do with leftover yolks. I plan to frame it and put it in my kitchen. Or at least bookmark it for later.

So I decided to whip up some lemon bars, lemon curd being probably my number one favourite sweet condiment on the planet. And I got the recipe from Squidoo, of all places.

It takes a bit of time to make lemon bars but none of it is particularly hard. So let’s begin.

Preheat your oven to 325°F and line an 8″ square pan with aluminum foil. I only had a round one, but that’s okay.

Separate 4 egg yolks from their whites, if you haven’t already done so.

In a food processor (that most amazing of kitchen machines), chuck 2 tablespoons granulated sugar and 2 tablespoons icing sugar. Process those for a minute or so.

Add in 10 tablespoons cold butter (that’s 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons, if that helps you to make it out) and pulse until the sugar is all disappeared.

Pour in 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour and pulse that around again until you have a sandy crumb texture.

Pour that out into your prepared pan.

Use your fingers to press the dough into place on the bottom of the pan, and prick it with a fork so it doesn’t explode. These things do happen.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, until the dough is firm and the edges are golden. Don’t allow it to brown, because you’ll be baking it again and this is supposed to be a pale dessert. Then the crust is done, reduce the oven heat to 300°F.

While the crust is baking, you can make your curd.

Use a microplane file to zest 2 whole lemons. Then you want to get the juice from 3 whole lemons (you can use the ones you already zested).

Set a strainer over a small bowl near your stove.

In a medium-sized pot, plop your 4 egg yolks and 3/4 cup granulated sugar. Beat until well combined.

Add in the lemon juice and 4 tablespoons butter.

Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the temperature of the liquid reads 196°F, the curd is bright yellow and opaque, and the mixture coats the back of a spoon. Just like that. Don’t allow the mixture to boil or it will curdle and you’ll have to start all over again.

Pour the mixture through you strainer and discard the little solid bits left in the strainer.

Stir in your reserved lemon zest.

Pour the mixture over the crust and bake for another 10 minutes. Allow to cool completely in the pan, then transfer to the refrigerator for 30 minutes to make sure the curd sets before you cut it.