Tag: lemon curd

Lemon curd addiction!

Lemon curd addiction

Lemons seem to be in full season again at the moment. I must have ten of them laying around either the fruit bowl and the fridge.  The season for lemonade has passed somehow and I have yet to learn to preserve lemons. So for now, one use of the lemons is in lemon curd desserts.

Lemon curd is not hard to make, you need to go slowly but you don’t necessarily need a bain marie to make it, that means it takes 10 minutes maximum!  Also once made, it keep for a few weeks in the fridge!

Lemon curd addiction is easy to catch, except if you do not have much of a sweet tooth. Since lemon curd can be quite overpowering, best is to counter balance the sugar and acidity or have it in small quantities only.

Our biggest family lemon curd addiction: the lemon curd pudding

I have finally shared this one with you. Looking back in my photos, I have many versions of it: family size, individual in ramequin and steamed and turn over versions! Yum.

This has been one of Ambrine’s favourite dessert for a few years now. Lemon curd at the bottom nd cake top over it.  It is rapid to make and is always beautiful.

Check out the recipe and its versions HERE.

ramequin lemon curd pudding

Lemon curd tiramisu

I posted this one some time ago, but it is well worth a reminder. Again use as family size of build in individual dishes!  Recipe HERE.

lemon curd tiramisu

Lemon curd tartlets

What an endless classic. They key here is to have them not too large.   The dough is a short pastry.  Other versions that the one proposed here can be used. You will need to precook them. As my Bonne Maman (the name we gave to my grandma) used to say, we are making “tartes aux cailloux” or pebble pie.

lemon curd tartlets

Lemon and lime tart

This is a little bit more involved and the pastry is a little delicate to make. That said it is well worth it.  The lemon curd cooks in the oven, a  little bit as a sweet quiche. Recipe HERE.

lemon curd

Lemon curd puddings

This lemon curd pudding is one of our favourite. It is quick to make and really easy. I either make it as individual portions as here on the photos or family version in a larger souffle dish.  The pudding consists in a lemon curd (don’t be afraid, read on, you can’t get it wrong) and a cake batter.

ramequin lemon curd pudding

Ingredients:

This makes 8 serves.

For the lemon curd
  • 120 g of butter
  • 170 g of white sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 175 g of lemon juice (about 2 good lemons)

Tip: the bright yellow colour  is linked to the egg yolks, the brighter your eggs, the more vibrant the lemon curd.

For the biscuit

160 g of butter
160 g of castor sugar
3 eggs
160 g of flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp grated lemon zest

Method
Lemon curd:
  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan with the lemon juice and sugar.
  2. In a medium bowl, break the eggs and beat them well with a whisk (to homogeneise them). Bring the warm liquid to boiling point.
  3. As soon as bubbles appear on the sides, pur it over the eggs while whisking.  It is very important you whisk all the time to disperse the heat and avoid omelette pieces in your curd.  It is possible the curd will be thickening on its own at this stage, if that is the case, no need to transfer back in the pan and cook further, keep whisking at low pace until the curd cools down a bit more (30 second to 1 minute).  If the curd has not thickened yet, then pour it back to the saucepan, always whisking and place it on medium heat. Keep mixing until the curd thickens then transfer to a clean bowl.

Tip: Want to know when your curd is at the right thickness? If the curd coats the back of a clean spoon (it doesn’t all run away), then it is ready.

Tip: Your lemon curd will further thicken when cooling down.

The pudding

Tip: If you are choosing the turn over steamed version , you will need to line bottoms with greaseproof paper circles. This would not be necessary if you are using silicone moulds. You will also need to cover the ramequins in foil and cook in a large roasting dish with water coming to 1/2 height. 

  1. Heat up the oven to 170ºC
  2. Grease eight small 150 mL ramequins or pudding bowls.
  3. Cream butter and sugar.
  4. Add the eggs on at a time, mix.
  5. Add the flour, baking powder and lemon zest. Mix well.
  6. Spoon two generous tablespoons of lemon curd into each ramequin.
  7. Spoon the biscuit dough over the lemon curd trying to cover it fully.
  8. Bake for about 20 minutes until well golden.  (for the steam version allow 30 min).
  9. Serve warm. Careful it is very hot when just out off the oven.   If unmoulding the steamed pudding, run a gentle knive around the outside of each pudding before turning out.
Other versions
The turn-over lemon curd pudding
The family  version lemon curd pudding
family lemon curd pudding
Yellow lava coming through the top! Yum!

 

The Tip Week!

This tip week is about baking tips, some of them hot from the press for me at least!

FabienneIf you follow my blog, you will remember that last weekend was the local school fete, the Halloween School fete.  The set up put in place was amaaaaazing and the fete was pretty cool.  Not that I saw a lot of it by any means, I spent most of the time at the food stall which name was  ” The Yummy Mummies Cafe”. 🙂

By the way, I did not bake everything, though a lot of it, and I had a great team of helpers for preparation and service.

Anyway, this Tip Week is bringing to you 5 key tips for your baking.  I will not overdo it because you would not remember all of them (I wouldn’t!).

Tip 1 : Getting a bright yellow lemon Curd

Lemon curd colour
Lemon curd with pale egg yolks on the right and bright egg yolks on the left

We had lemon curd tiramisu pots on our school fete menu. Yum! I get my eggs, some beautiful lemon supplied by the local grocer, sugar aHalloween fetend butter and I start cooking.  My first batch was pale yellow, it would have scared the crowds away! What to do?

I discovered that the egg yolks is the key element which provides the colour! I changed eggs and got a beautiful bright yellow lemon curd.  This is the reason why some recipes remove part of the egg white: it keep the yellow colour more intense.

Tip 2: Use corn flour when rolling fondant

This tip is so useful!  Seriously, make your life easy when rolling fondant. You only need a little bit of corn flour, no mess really and so much easier. For the 40 or so ghosts I manage to roll the fondant quite thin (2mm), from there it was just a matter of placing it on top of the lollypop balls.

Also, to attach two pieces of fondant together, use a drop of water!

Tip 3: Some items don’t bake well together

I could have prevented this one, my focus was unfortunately elsewhere.

Baking a cake at the same time as brioches does not work! Simply because the brioche asks for a humid environment, when the cake doesn’t.  Our cake ended up looking somewhat like the face of the moon. We ate it here, it was still beautiful, but not presentable.

Tip 4: Line or butter and flour your tin?

Lately, I had been lining with baking paper a lot of my tins, at least the base.  I always used not to do so but to generously butter all sides and flour over it.  I have had a few catastrophes, I guess, this is why I lined the tin.  Some recipes will clearly ask you to line the tin, do it!

Otherwise, it depends on your tin.  By the way, we are speaking metal cake tins here. If you tin is old with uneven surface, lining is definitely safer! New tins, feel free to butter and flour, it works perfectly well.

I had 2 set of muffin trays for my brioches, the old one kept sticking while brioches in the new one would just pop out on their own! However, it is not easy to line muffin trays, so I just made sure there was a serious butter&flour coating and I managed.

Tip 5: Testing your cake for doneness

There are a few ways here.  The safest way is to use a cake tester.  It is a thick and long needle tool which can be inserted in the middle of the cake and should come out dry.  Insert through a crack if there are any, it won’t leave a trace. Don’t have a cake tester? Use a kebab stick? Use the thinner one in the pack if possible.

Another way to check, is to place your hand over the middle of the cake and gently wobble the top.  If the cake wobbles, it needs more cooking. If the cake does not move, it is likely to be done.  Now, for bigger cakes, there is a risk that the very middle may still need more time, for those, I recommend the cake tester.

The Yummy Mummies Cafe
Chocolate mousses with raspberry topping, apple tart, lemon curd tiramisu, ghosts, friands…
The Yummy Mummies Cafe
Chocolate cake (gateau de Suzy), fairy wands, …

Lemon Curd Tiramisu

This lemon curd tiramisu is a fresh tangy delightful dessert! Just writing about it makes me smile.  This dessert happened just one day while wanting to do a tiramisu which is not coffee based.

The recipe is super easy.  Serves 12.  Depending on the dish you use, you may have a bit of leftover of the lemon curd or mascarpone mix.

Ingredients

For the lemon curd
  • 3 eggs
  • The zest of 2 lemons (previously washed)
  • The juice of the two lemons
  • 1 cup of white sugar
  • 1/2 cup of butter
For the tiramisu
  • 500 g of mascarpone
  • 400 ml cream to be whipped to soft peaks
  • 1/4 cup of sugar
  • 2 egg yolks
  • savoiardi (or sponge fingers biscuits), 1 to 2  packet (20-30 biscuits)
  • Almond flakes
  • Sugar syrup.  You only need about 1/2 cup here.
  • a few tablespoons of a liquor (fruit based) if desired.

Tip: if you don’t have any sugar syrup, dissolve 1 cup of white sugar in 1/4 L of water in a saucepan (roughly 1 cup), let it reduce until syrupy, it will keep for month in a glass bottle. You can make larger batches.  You can use it for a number of desserts, cocktails (ti’punch for example) or sorbets.

Method

For the lemon curd:

Melt the butter with the lemon juice and sugar in a saucepan.  Add the lemon zest.  In the meanwhile, beat the eggs slightly in a large bowl.  Once the butter is melted, slowly transfer the liquid hot mixture to the eggs while whisking continuously.  The mix will start thickening, transfer back to the saucepan and place on low heat until it thickens but without reaching boiling point.  Transfer to a clean bowl.  The mixture will thicken further when cooling down. If you have cooked the curd too much and got a little bit of scrambled eggs, pass it through a sieve.

For the tiramisu:
  1. Choose a dish wide enough and tall enough to enable the layering.  At least 12 cm high to allow for consistent layers.
  2. If you have a kitchen Aid or similar, it is time to get it out, if not, a whisk will work perfectly. Mix the mascarpone and egg yolks until smooth and fully combined.  Whip the cream to soft peaks, adding the sugar slowly towards the end. Combine first 1/4 of the whipped cream with the mascarpone, then combine the rest.
  3. In a deep plate, mix 1/4 cup of hot water with 1/4 cup of sugar syrup and our chosen spirits (2 tbsp).
  4. The bottom layer is made with the savoiardi.  One at the time, place a biscuit in the syrup mix for 5 seconds until moist but not crumbling ad transfer to the bottom of the dish. Repeat to cover the bottom, you will most likely need to cut the biscuits to size to fit the corners or fill up the voids.
  5. Cover with mascarpone, about 1.5 cm thick. Now, add a layer of lemon curd (1 cm thick maximum).
  6. Repeat the biscuit layering stage making sure you soak them before placing them down.  If you run out of the soaking liquid, make a new quantity. Add a layer of mascarpone, then a layer of lemon curd. This second layer of lemon curd can be thicker (up to 2 cm).  Now place the remaining of the mascarpone mix on top in a little dome structure, using a round knife or chop stick , lightly swirl through the mascarpone layer with the lemon curd right underneath.
  7. Toast some almond flakes in a frypan or under the grill (don’t forget them!) and place on top of the tiramisu.  Don’t forget that this steps makes the dessert happen!

Tip:  if you have too much mascarpone mix, place in ramequins and cover, keep in the fridge, it will make a nice little treat for someone in the coming days. Lemon curd keeps in the fridge in a plastic box for a week or so. 

tiramisu, the almonds on top!