As winter drags on outside, I can’t wait to start brightening up our dishes inside. One of the best ways to add a little zing to almost any dish is to bring in the flavor of fresh squeezed lemon juice or zest. As citrus season starts coming to a close, but egg production starts picking up, it’s the perfect time to make a simple lemon curd.

What makes this dish so simple?

Traditionally lemon curd is made with just five simple ingredients – lemon zest, lemon juice, egg yolks, butter, and sugar.
Because we try to avoid white sugar in our kitchen and still have a few quarts of honey from our bees in the pantry, I decided to swap the sugar for honey instead. It makes the dish a little healthier, and much more flavorful.

You simply whisk these ingredients in a bowl, set it on top of a pan of simmering water (making your own double boiler), and whisk away. While you can add all the ingredients in at the beginning, I’ve found that adding the butter in 1 tablespoon at a time near the end of the cooking process (like when making caramel), helps give lemon curd its glossy sheen. It’s best of you keep your butter cold right until you add it, so I’ll typically cut it into tablespoons and then leave it in the refrigerator until I’m ready to add it.

Lemon curd does require a little patience as you need to whisk until the curd thickens, which can take 15-20 minutes. And as tempting as it can be to walk away from the stove, you don’t want to end up with slightly cooked scrambled eggs, so stay diligent (or recruit a kid to help take turns with you)!

How do you use lemon curd?

In our house we love to put lemon curd on almost anything! I’ll often make biscuits or blueberry muffins (lemon blueberry is a personal favorite combination) or serve it mixed into yogurt. You can use it to make lemon bars, lemon cheesecake, or even use is as layers between a vanilla cake. I may even eat it directly with a spoon on occasion!

Print

Simple Lemon Curd

The bright flavors of freshly-squeezed lemon juice and fragrant honey combine to make a delicious lemon curd.

Course Dessert

Keyword Honey, Lemon, lemon curd

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes

Ingredients

• 6 egg yolks
• lemon zest from 2 lemons
• 1/2 cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice
• 2/3 cup honey
• 6 tbsp butter, cut into pieces chilled

Instructions

1. Put egg yolks, zest, lemon juice, and honey into the top of a double boiler. You can make your own double boiler by simply placing the ingredients into a glass or metal bowl and setting that over a pan of gently simmering water. Just make sure the bowl does not touch the water.

2. Whisk the ingredients until the curd thickens, about 15 minutes.

3. Add in 1 tablespoon of the butter at a time until all pieces are incorporated.

4. Remove from the heat and store in a clean container. Some cooks prefer to strain their curd to give it a really silky smooth texture. Personally I don't mind the lemon zest adding a little texture, so I skip this step.

5. Refrigerate. If you want to prevent a skin from forming on top of the curd you can place plastic wrap on the surface. That doesn't bother me, so we usually just store it as is and enjoy!