Easy Lemon Curd Recipe

Lemon curd is just outstandingly delicious. This treat is great on toast, english muffins, angel food cake, vanilla ice cream, shortbread cookies, biscuits or my husband’s favorite, a spoon. Lemon Curd is also a great holiday gift. I often make a big batch during the Christmas season and send out friends and family.

Ingredients & Equipment Needed

Lemon curd is made from 5 simple ingredients

• Lemon juice
  Best from fresh lemons, you can use the bottled lemon juice but its just not as great for this recipe.
• Lemon zest
  Zest from an organic lemon is best. If you don’t have organic lemons wash with apple cider vinegar before you zest.
• Sugar
  You can substitute with honey or another sweetener but sugar is going to help create the texture we are looking for where the substitutes might not give the same results.
• Eggs
  Egg yokes and whole eggs. I freeze my egg whites in a pint jar and when I get about 1 or 2 cups I make angel food cake with them.
• Butter
  Butter will bring a creaminess to this recipe and will also help solidify the texture along with the egg yokes.

Equipment needed

• Double boiler or heavy bottom pot*
• Whisk
• Spatula
• Zester

*If you don’t have a double boiler or heavy bottom pot don’t fret too much. I actually don’t use my heavy bottom pot very often because I typically triple this recipe and my heavy bottom pot is too small for that amount. With my regular pot I just keep a very, very close eye on the heat and stir continuously. You want the heat to be very even to cook properly.

Instructions & Tips

To start your Lemon Curd zest 2 lemons. Mix zest and sugar together in a pot or bowl, off the heat. The sugar will draw out a little more flavor from the zest.

Next, add the eggs to your sugar and zest and mix for about 3 minutes until a pail yellow color. Mixing the eggs and sugar together will aerate the mixture creating a light and creamy curd. Then add the lemon juice and butter and turn the heat on medium high.

Stir continuously, don’t step away from the lemon curd. You want the heat to distribute as evenly as possible resulting in a smooth lemon curd. Cook for about 10 minutes or until it thickens. It will continue to thicken as it cools. When ever I do a larger batch it does that longer than 10 minutes, so be patient.

Once it’s thick, take off the heat and let it cool. If you are canning and you can put the curd straight into your clean, sanitized jars while it’s hot. Screw your lids on finger tight and add to hot canning water. If you have waited till the curd has cooled to can just make sure you canning water is not too hot when you place the cans in. You want the temperature of the water and the temperature of your contents to be a similar temperature when you place them in the water or you glass your brake.

Storing Lemon Curd

Once you’ve made your delicious lemon curd and if you didn’t eat it in one day you will need to find a way to store it. There are three may ways to store lemon curd.

• Air tight container in refrigerator. Lemon curd will last in the refrigerator for 7-10 days.
• Water bath canning. Canned lemon curd has a shelf life of 3-4 months
• Freeze. Frozen lemon curd is good for 1 year.

Storing in your refrigerator is great if you know you are going to eat it within a week. So if you are making your lemon curd for an event or holiday just grab a air tight container or mason jar with a lid and place in the refrigerator. Enjoy that week, if by the end of the week you haven’t finished it place it in the freezer so as to not waste it. If you have frozen lemon curd its not hard to thaw. Just place it in the refrigerator 24 hours before you want to use it and it will be ready. You can also place it on the counter to thaw or in a bowl of cold water. If you place your cold glass jar in hot water it is likely to break and we don’t want broken glass mixed with our lemon curd. So make sure to use cold water.

Canning Lemon Curd

To can your lemon curd you can use the water bath canning method. Here are some simple steps to follow.

• Prepare, clean and sanitize all your jars and lids.
• In your water bath canner with rack, heat you water to a light steam or 180 degrees.
• Make your lemon curd.
• Pour lemon curd while still hot in your prepared jars. Leave an 1/2 inch of space from the top of the jar. Screw the ring on the lids just finger tight.
• Place the jars in the water bath canner. the water should cover you jars with about 1 inch of water on above the jars.
• Turn the heat up to medium high to slowly bring your water from 180 degrees to a boil. This may take 20-30 minutes. Just keep an eye on it. I set my timer for 20 minutes then check every couple minutes after that till its at a boil.
• Let the water boil for 15 minutes, then turn off the heat and let the jars sit in the canner for another 5 minutes before removing.
• Take jars our with your canning jar lifter and place on a towel on your counter. Let them cool all the way before taking the ring off.

This recipe will make about 1 1/2 pints or 3 half pint jars of lemon curd. I like to triple this recipe when canning giving me 8-9 half pint jars.

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