How to cook Lemon curd

Everyone in a Jacican preserving class cooks lemon curd. 

If you would like to learn how to cook lemon curd, along with marmalade, cordial, preserved oranges and lemon jelly come along to a seasonal citrus preserving class. 

Digging back into my chef training, there are a couple of things we should all know to make the perfect lemon curd. 

Firstly, eggs. 

And not making bad scrambled eggs of your lemon curd. 

Lemon curd thickens as the egg proteins coagulate.

For eggs, whites coagulate around 60 °C and yolks around 68 °C, with the coagulation temperature increasing depending on the amount of sugar you have added to them. 

With this lemon curd recipe, you can achieve a coagulation temperature of up to 82 °C without scrambling the eggs. 

The advantage of heating your lemon curd to this temperature is that you can hold it at temperature for 5 to 10 minutes, which helps reduce the risk of nasty bacteria that can sometimes be found in eggs. 

Ingredients 

• 3 lemons
• 150 grams of pouring cream
• 200 grams of caster sugar
• 5 eggs

You need to use a reasonable-sized lemon for this recipe. If your lemons seem small, use an extra one.

You will be cooking lemon curd using a bain marie, which is when you cook something over a water bath.

It is a gentle cooking method where the ingredients are in a bowl over gently simmering water and whisked until cooked. 

A lightweight metal bowl that fits on top of a saucepan is ideal. 

Hold the metal bowl over the saucepan with a folded dry tea-towel to protect your hand from the heat. 

Hint: Don’t let the bowl touch the water, as if the bottom of the bowl touches the water, the lemon curd will cook too fast and curdle. 

Method

1. Set up a bain marie. Find a saucepan that will comfortably hold the bowl. Half fill the saucepan with water, checking that the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water. If you place the bowl on the saucepan before filling it with ingredients, then lift it back up, you will see and feel if the bottom of the bowl is wet. Bring the water to a simmer.  
2. Place all the ingredients in a heat-proof bowl. Beat the mixture together using a whisk.
3. Place the bowl of ingredients over the bain marie. 
4. Whisk the mixture together until the mixture thickens. Using a kitchen thermometer to check the temperature, bring the mixture to 82 °C. Reduce the heat and hold the mixture at this temperature for at least 5 minutes, if not 10 minutes.
5. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve into a bowl. Place a layer of clear plastic wrap on the surface of the hot curd. This will stop a skin from forming on the curd. 

Everyone in a Jacican citrus preserving class will make lemon curd.