Lemon curd is one of those great afternoon teatime treats, lovely spread on hot crumpets or used as a filling in cakes or tarts. It is surprisingly quick and easy to make, even with a child helper as I had here.
You can of course buy lemon curd, but it's sure to contain thickeners and preservatives and you'd miss out on all the fun of squeezing lemons and cracking eggs. The whole process only took an hour from start to finish and was a fun way to pass a wet afternoon.

This recipe is taken from the WI book of preserves.

  See here for the lemon curd recipe in detail.

Recipe Costs

£0.42 325g caster sugar
£1.20 juice and finely grated zest of 4 lemons
£0.55 125g of unsalted butter
£0.68 4 eggs

£2.85 Total

£3.16per kg of lemon curd (about 80% of the cost of quality lemon curd from tesco)

The lemons are scrubbed clean and then the zest is finely grated, try not to grate any of the bitter white pith. Use the finest grater possible as the strands will remain in the finished curd, a tool like the microplane grater would be ideal for this, although I just used the fine side of my box grater.

I put each lemon in the microwave for 20 seconds on high, which helps release more of the juice, we then squeezed them using a classic glass lemon squeezer.

This produced 250ml of juice, which was combined with the zest in a heatproof bowl.

We cracked four eggs and lightly beat them...

...before weighing out the castor sugar and butter.
All the ingredients were mixed up in the bowl, a beautiful blend of different yellows contrasting with the white of the sugar.

Careful stirring over a steaming pan of water came next, making sure the water wasn't touching the base of the bowl.
It's important not to let the mixture boil as the eggs will cook to fast, even so you may find some small lumps of cooked egg white form, these can be strained out at the end or picked out as you go along.
An alternative method of making lemon curd (creaming the eggs, butter and sugar first) can stop this happening and is described on the finecooking website.

Stir until the curd thickens and coats the back of a spoon (about 20 minutes), it will also thicken up some more on cooling.
Pot in sterilised jars and keep in the fridge for up to two weeks, once opened use within 3 days.
You can also freeze it in small pots in the freezer and take out to use when needed.

Use spread in small sandwiches, swirled into cheesecake mixture, or for filling puff pastry tarts.

Recipe Timings

30 minutes Preparation
20 minutes Simmering
10 minutes Bottling