Making Lemon Curd: A Step-by-Step Guide

When it comes to making lemon curd, there are a few key components that come together to create a smooth and tangy sauce. One of the most important things to note is that we're going to be adding our cold lemon juice at this point, but because we're making a lemon curd, we're going to be adding it in at a good slow stream. This allows us to control the amount of acidity that's added to the mixture and prevents it from becoming too overwhelming. As we add the lemon juice, you'll notice that the mixture begins to froth up and turn a pale yellow color.

As we continue to mix, some of the egg will start to congeal with the sugar. This is completely normal, and it's actually a good sign that the mixture is coming together properly. Once we've added all of the lemon juice, we'll move on to adding our heat. We're going to add just enough heat to bring the mixture up to temperature, but not so much that it becomes too hot or causes the eggs to scramble. It's this delicate balance that makes making lemon curd so challenging.

To achieve this balance, we need to be very careful when adding heat to the mixture. If we leave the heat on for too long, the eggs will start to cook and the mixture will become too thick and scrambled. This is a common mistake that beginners make, but with practice and patience, you'll get the hang of it. As we stir the mixture constantly over medium-low heat, you'll notice it starting to thicken up quickly. This is a sign that the eggs are cooking properly and the sugar is dissolving.

Once the mixture has reached our desired consistency, we'll add in some lemon zest to infuse more flavor into the curd. The lemon zest adds a nice texture and aroma to the finished product, and it helps to prevent the curd from becoming too thick or overpowering. With the lemon zest added, we're almost ready to move on to the final step: adding butter.

To finish off our lemon curd, we'll add in some cold butter and stir it in until fully incorporated. This is a crucial step, as it helps to create a smooth and creamy texture that's essential for good lemon curd. As we stir the mixture constantly over low heat, you'll notice the butter melting into the curd and creating a beautiful, silky texture.

Finally, we'll stop cooking our lemon curd and give it one last stir before straining it through a conical strainer to remove any lumps or egg solids. This is an important step, as it helps to create a smooth and even consistency that's perfect for using in desserts or as a topping for ice cream.

To finish off our lemon curd, we'll strain it into a metal bowl and cover it with plastic wrap, pressing the wrap directly onto the surface of the curd. This helps to prevent a skin from forming on top of the curd, which can be unappealing in appearance. As we chill the lemon curd in the refrigerator, you'll notice it starting to set and thicken up further.

Chilled Lemon Curd: A Versatile Dessert

Once our lemon curd has chilled, we can start using it in a variety of desserts and applications. One of the most popular ways to use lemon curd is as a topping for ice cream or frozen yogurt. It adds a bright and tangy flavor that's perfect for balancing out rich and creamy textures.

Lemon curd is also delicious on its own, either served straight from the jar or used as a filling for cakes and tarts. To make a beautiful presentation, we can layer our lemon curd with whipped cream and graham crackers in a martini glass or champagne flute. This is just one example of how you can use lemon curd to create a stunning dessert.

Of course, the possibilities are endless when it comes to using lemon curd. You can also use it as a filling for macarons, topping for pancakes or waffles, or even as an ingredient in your favorite recipes. Whether you're looking for a tangy and refreshing flavor or a rich and creamy texture, lemon curd is the perfect addition to any dessert.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enand welcome back to love your food this week Chef Caleb is going to show you our very first dessert recipe and that's this beautiful lemon curd now a fruit curd like this is basically just a custard with the cream being replaced by a usually fairly sour tasting juice uh so let's get started with our ingredients so to get started here we have our lemons we have some cubed cold butter we also have some eggs and some sugar just a very simple custard recipe so let's start with our lemons uh from the lemons we're going to want to get both the zest and the juice so we're going to start with the zesting uh it's much easier to do it in this order so you definitely want to uh use a micop plane grater if you have it that's the easiest way to get all of the zest off and a minimum of the pith that'll give you a lot of really aromatic oil and flavor without getting a whole lot of that bitter pith in there as well uh if you don't have a microplane grader like this uh you can use the fine side of a regular cheese grater and uh that will also work so there we go that's all the lemon zest from the two lemons there and now we're going to juice these so give it a good little roll just cut it in half now what Chef Caleb likes to do is give it a good squeeze first to get as much of the juice out as you can then he gives a little trim which uh does a couple of things number one it breaks up some of those cells to get a little more juice out and then he takes his Ramer and uh you can use a fork or a spoon to do this as well now we don't want a lot of the pulp in this so we are going to strain this and uh you'll see at the end as well we want a very nice smooth curd so we are going to strain the final product as well but we'll talk about that when we get to it so here we go we're just juicing these lemons what we're looking for is uh about half a cup of juice here and once you have that much you're good to go these uh these lemons definitely added up to a good half a cup and you definitely get a little bit more out of them if you've been rolling them pretty pretty firmly on your cutting board and giving them a good uh a good squeeze in there once you have it all in your strainer there you want to give it a good little run through with whatever you're using you can use a spoon as I said or a or a fork just to make sure you're getting all of that juice out of the lemons and into your measuring cup we're just going to get all the pulp off of the Ramer good tap on the strainer and we're just going to set that aside for now once we have all the juice out of there so there's our lemon juice and lemon zest so now on to the eggs so we're going to start with our three eggs and uh unlike some other lemon curd recipes we're actually going to be uh using whole eggs we're not going to separate them so if you have a hard time separating eggs don't worry about it you're not going to have to do it for this recipe uh now you don't need a mixer stand like this you can use uh regular beers or anything that you have you can also do it by hand we're going to use the uh lazy way here and uh get our KitchenAid going for this and in goes the sugar now once the sugar hits those eggs you definitely want to get them beating right away because they will start to uh they will start to cook the sugar will start to uh make the eggs congeal a little bit so you definitely want to make sure that you get beating right away and you want that beating until it's nice and fluffy and pale um basically to what we call the ribbon then you're going to give it all a good little scrape down the side once you've reached that stage turn your beater back on and here's where we're going to incorporate our lemon juice now normally for a custard we would be adding hot milk or hot cream at this point but uh because we're making a lemon curd we're going to be adding our cold lemon juice and just put that in at a good slow stream let it incorporate fully and then once that's all well Blended nice and frothy and pale going to give it a little stir now you can see some of the egg has congealed as it mixes with the sugar but as I said earlier we are going to strain this later so once that's done very quickly you want to move that over to a pan put a little bit of heat under it and then get it all into your pot now we're going to going to heat it pretty slowly it's going to be a medium low heat and you do want to pay pretty close attention to this you're not going to leave it you're going to be stirring this constantly once the heat has been added one thing about custards and curds like this They do change very quickly uh you want to make sure you have a nice soft soft silicone or heat resistant spatula here constantly stirring you want to make sure nothing's sticking to the bottom and then very quickly it goes to this nice thick lemon curd and it happens almost instantaneously it'll go from pretty liquid to very very thick like this so once we're at that stage we're going to add our lemon zest to this and that just uh allows us to retain more of the lemon oil so we're not heating the zest too much so the lemon oil from the zest is going to just Infuse that curd with a little bit more Aroma and then once it's at the consistency you like we're just going to toss the butter in there doesn't take very long but you definitely want to stop it from cooking pretty quickly once it's reached its uh once it's reached its consistency and there you see fairly thick we do have a few lumps in there that is uh some of the egg uh as I said congealed with the sugar and also our lemon dust in there will provide a few lumps but we are going to strain this before we use it so let's stop the cooking on that we're just going to add our cold butter and get that in we're just going to keep stirring that until all of that butter is melted Incorporated and uh we're going to do that off the heat just so it doesn't cook any further it's just going to thicken up a little bit with that butter so we're just going to keep stirring that until all of those butter cubes have melted and Incorporated now you see it's still fairly loose but it is going to thicken when we chill it it's going to set and now is a good time to taste it to make sure that it's uh the right flavor for you and just keep stirring continuously you want to keep that uh keep the bottom scraped keep the side scraped make sure everything's well Incorporated and then we're going to give it a good strain here and we have one of these conical strainers we're just going to put it into our metal Bowl here it's important that you use a metal Bowl uh it does help to disperse the heat better going to cover this with plastic wrap and uh the plastic wrap does stick a little bit better to the metal Bowl than it does to for instance a plastic Bowl so for those reasons we do want to use a metal bowl for this and then give it a good strain just work it all the way through the strainer with your spatula and that will make for a really nice smooth custard and you do want the plastic wrap actually pretty close to it so we're just going to push that right down on top of it otherwise you get quite a pronounced skin on your uh on your custard on your lemon curd here so we're just going to have that really close to the whole thing and then we're going to chill that in the fridge for a little while you can do just about anything you like with this but we're going to show you a really beautiful part with some whipped cream and some buttered graham crackers and uh that means it's time for a montage w and there's our lemon CD so as you can see here we've got presentations in both a martini glass and a champagne flute but you can use this for lots of different fun desserts you can put this in uh lemon tarts or tartlets uh it works great in a parfait like this topping for ice cream you can use it as a filling for macaron or into some kind of cupcake as well you can use it as a filling and uh that's our recipe for this week if you like this please like And subscribe below and please let us know in the comments if there's any recipes you'd like to see Chef Caleb try on the channel and remember to love your foodand welcome back to love your food this week Chef Caleb is going to show you our very first dessert recipe and that's this beautiful lemon curd now a fruit curd like this is basically just a custard with the cream being replaced by a usually fairly sour tasting juice uh so let's get started with our ingredients so to get started here we have our lemons we have some cubed cold butter we also have some eggs and some sugar just a very simple custard recipe so let's start with our lemons uh from the lemons we're going to want to get both the zest and the juice so we're going to start with the zesting uh it's much easier to do it in this order so you definitely want to uh use a micop plane grater if you have it that's the easiest way to get all of the zest off and a minimum of the pith that'll give you a lot of really aromatic oil and flavor without getting a whole lot of that bitter pith in there as well uh if you don't have a microplane grader like this uh you can use the fine side of a regular cheese grater and uh that will also work so there we go that's all the lemon zest from the two lemons there and now we're going to juice these so give it a good little roll just cut it in half now what Chef Caleb likes to do is give it a good squeeze first to get as much of the juice out as you can then he gives a little trim which uh does a couple of things number one it breaks up some of those cells to get a little more juice out and then he takes his Ramer and uh you can use a fork or a spoon to do this as well now we don't want a lot of the pulp in this so we are going to strain this and uh you'll see at the end as well we want a very nice smooth curd so we are going to strain the final product as well but we'll talk about that when we get to it so here we go we're just juicing these lemons what we're looking for is uh about half a cup of juice here and once you have that much you're good to go these uh these lemons definitely added up to a good half a cup and you definitely get a little bit more out of them if you've been rolling them pretty pretty firmly on your cutting board and giving them a good uh a good squeeze in there once you have it all in your strainer there you want to give it a good little run through with whatever you're using you can use a spoon as I said or a or a fork just to make sure you're getting all of that juice out of the lemons and into your measuring cup we're just going to get all the pulp off of the Ramer good tap on the strainer and we're just going to set that aside for now once we have all the juice out of there so there's our lemon juice and lemon zest so now on to the eggs so we're going to start with our three eggs and uh unlike some other lemon curd recipes we're actually going to be uh using whole eggs we're not going to separate them so if you have a hard time separating eggs don't worry about it you're not going to have to do it for this recipe uh now you don't need a mixer stand like this you can use uh regular beers or anything that you have you can also do it by hand we're going to use the uh lazy way here and uh get our KitchenAid going for this and in goes the sugar now once the sugar hits those eggs you definitely want to get them beating right away because they will start to uh they will start to cook the sugar will start to uh make the eggs congeal a little bit so you definitely want to make sure that you get beating right away and you want that beating until it's nice and fluffy and pale um basically to what we call the ribbon then you're going to give it all a good little scrape down the side once you've reached that stage turn your beater back on and here's where we're going to incorporate our lemon juice now normally for a custard we would be adding hot milk or hot cream at this point but uh because we're making a lemon curd we're going to be adding our cold lemon juice and just put that in at a good slow stream let it incorporate fully and then once that's all well Blended nice and frothy and pale going to give it a little stir now you can see some of the egg has congealed as it mixes with the sugar but as I said earlier we are going to strain this later so once that's done very quickly you want to move that over to a pan put a little bit of heat under it and then get it all into your pot now we're going to going to heat it pretty slowly it's going to be a medium low heat and you do want to pay pretty close attention to this you're not going to leave it you're going to be stirring this constantly once the heat has been added one thing about custards and curds like this They do change very quickly uh you want to make sure you have a nice soft soft silicone or heat resistant spatula here constantly stirring you want to make sure nothing's sticking to the bottom and then very quickly it goes to this nice thick lemon curd and it happens almost instantaneously it'll go from pretty liquid to very very thick like this so once we're at that stage we're going to add our lemon zest to this and that just uh allows us to retain more of the lemon oil so we're not heating the zest too much so the lemon oil from the zest is going to just Infuse that curd with a little bit more Aroma and then once it's at the consistency you like we're just going to toss the butter in there doesn't take very long but you definitely want to stop it from cooking pretty quickly once it's reached its uh once it's reached its consistency and there you see fairly thick we do have a few lumps in there that is uh some of the egg uh as I said congealed with the sugar and also our lemon dust in there will provide a few lumps but we are going to strain this before we use it so let's stop the cooking on that we're just going to add our cold butter and get that in we're just going to keep stirring that until all of that butter is melted Incorporated and uh we're going to do that off the heat just so it doesn't cook any further it's just going to thicken up a little bit with that butter so we're just going to keep stirring that until all of those butter cubes have melted and Incorporated now you see it's still fairly loose but it is going to thicken when we chill it it's going to set and now is a good time to taste it to make sure that it's uh the right flavor for you and just keep stirring continuously you want to keep that uh keep the bottom scraped keep the side scraped make sure everything's well Incorporated and then we're going to give it a good strain here and we have one of these conical strainers we're just going to put it into our metal Bowl here it's important that you use a metal Bowl uh it does help to disperse the heat better going to cover this with plastic wrap and uh the plastic wrap does stick a little bit better to the metal Bowl than it does to for instance a plastic Bowl so for those reasons we do want to use a metal bowl for this and then give it a good strain just work it all the way through the strainer with your spatula and that will make for a really nice smooth custard and you do want the plastic wrap actually pretty close to it so we're just going to push that right down on top of it otherwise you get quite a pronounced skin on your uh on your custard on your lemon curd here so we're just going to have that really close to the whole thing and then we're going to chill that in the fridge for a little while you can do just about anything you like with this but we're going to show you a really beautiful part with some whipped cream and some buttered graham crackers and uh that means it's time for a montage w and there's our lemon CD so as you can see here we've got presentations in both a martini glass and a champagne flute but you can use this for lots of different fun desserts you can put this in uh lemon tarts or tartlets uh it works great in a parfait like this topping for ice cream you can use it as a filling for macaron or into some kind of cupcake as well you can use it as a filling and uh that's our recipe for this week if you like this please like And subscribe below and please let us know in the comments if there's any recipes you'd like to see Chef Caleb try on the channel and remember to love your food\n"