Go to lemon curd recipe - ratios, yolks or whole eggs

Nice! How many yolks did you use and what proportion of sugar & juice?

A week ago:

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Beautiful!

I don’t know! I shared some 2022 lemon exploits here, but mostly pictures and no details.

Did you use a recipe? Which recipe did you use? This time I plan to use the Felicity Cloake recipe from the Guardian link, or maybe this one from Serious Eats.

They both use whole eggs+yolks+salt and rub the zest with sugar.

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I wonder what happened to the OP, whom I remember being rather prolific in the early days of HO.

I made lemon curd as a xmas present for pretty much my entire family when I was 12 (obviously no idea which recipe I used). Good stuff, but too sweet for me now.

much as i love butter, i really like this olive oil recipe from the nytimes. i cut the sugar to 1/2 cup when i use meyers. and while you have to stir it far longer that it says, the result is worth it.

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My aunt’s simplified recipe, which is only whole eggs these days

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I love that idea! Still seems like desert?

oh yes! it’s a bit lighter — mouthfeels’s not as unctuous as butter, so the lemon flavor really shines.

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I ended up using the serious eats recipe because I wanted to use my yolks frozen with a pinch of salt, which ended up weighing closer to 4 ounces.

The ratios were supposed to be
3/4 cup granulated sugar (5 1/4 ounces; 150g)
1 cup (240ml) lemon juice
3 large eggs
4 large egg yolks (2 ounces; 56g)
5 tablespoons unsalted butter (2 1/2 ounces; 70g), softened

I ended up straining out about 1/4 cup of solids which probably included some extra egg yolk as a result of the texture due to freezing. I froze yolks in plastic condiment containers from take out, with a pinch of salt or sugar, lightly whisked in with a fondue fork.


I had to taste!

I think it tastes good, and while still warm, seems appropriately creamy, but husband has already declared it “too eggy” from the picture.

I’m going to try to get another picture after it’s cold, if that happens before the edit window closes

Cold

Better representation

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Bringing the curd discussion here for continuity @GretchenS @Nannybakes @CaitlinM

So I went to look at this, thinking you were talking about lemon curd (vs cranberry curd), and am now really fighting the urge to go down the rabbithole of lemon curd proportions, because his is SO different than my aunt’s, which I most recently made.

I used: 7 eggs, 1 lb sugar, 8oz butter, 12 oz juice.

Sam: 6 eggs, 200g / 7oz / 1 cup sugar, 113g / 4oz / 0.5 cup butter, 8fl oz / 240g / 1 cup juice

Almost the same number of eggs, half the sugar and butter, 2/3 of the juice. Hmmmm. More custard than curd? Sweetness /tartness clearly varies a lot by sugar to juice proportion.

Alice Medrich: 3 eggs, 0.5 cup sugar, 3 oz / 6 tbsp butter, 4 fl oz / 0.5 cup juice

Dorie Greenspan: 4 eggs, 1.25 cup / 250g sugar, 4 oz / 8 tbsp butter, 6 fl oz / 0.75 cup juice, 1 T corn syrup

Nancy Birtwhistle: 2 eggs, 1/3 cup / 75g sugar, 2oz /4 tbsp / 50g butter, juice of 1-2 lemons

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Interesting that the proportions of the Buttermilk by Sam recipe are the same as Medrich’s, except for using less butter (aligning the yields, BBS uses two-thirds the butter that Medrich does).

Medrich’s definitely yields curd, not custard, texture- and flavor-wise. I like the equal proportions of sugar and lemon juice (or even less sugar with Meyer lemons). It makes a very brightly flavored, and certainly sweet enough/not too tart, curd.

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But
but
you left out my favorite :weary:, Stella Parks. Her method uses equal weights of lemon juice, sugar and egg yolks, but no butter. It is also easy to scale up and easy to remember. She is of the opinion that without the butter , you get a more intense lemon taste and I’m in that camp. It was also, iirc, in that discussion/comments, the people who found some curds to be more “‘ eggy” tasting , the whites were the culprits. Of course, without butter, the yield is lesser but I’m willing to forgo that for the more intense lemon flavor. I do add some strips of lemon peel or citric acid to increase the tartness factor. I only use Meyer for curd, so that does affect the pucker factor.
And
passion fruit runs a very close second ( for me) to Meyer curd. Goya has a frozen flat pack of passionfruit purée which allows you to crack off a chunk at a time while frozen, I usually add a pinch or so or more of citric acid to that curd as well. The curd freezes with no loss of flavor.
If I wanted to add some butter to either, I follow the Pierre Hermé method of letting the curd cool to 140* and then blitzing the butter in at that point. He feels that you get a silkier emulsion with that method.

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I’ve always used Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Cake Bible lemon curd recipe.
When I had a Meyer lemon tree I would make up dozens of pints of it and give them away at Easter, when our tree was just about done producing. That, and the quarts of juice I’d freeze for everything else

I don’t have the recipe in front of me to quote the measurements.

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Totally in agreement here.
When I was first learning Pastry, my Chef would give Recipes in French saying that “I could figure it out”,
he said that all Egg Yolks would give the best Flavor, Color and Texture for Lemon Curd.

6 Yolks
.5C Lemon Juice with Zest from Lemon
.5C Sugar
6 T Butter

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 should have read including a whole egg

I made another batch today, this time using the recipe from Sally’s Baking addiction because I wanted to end up with egg whites; I could use only three eggs, and have whites left (for more spices pecans!).

There’s an option for “thicker” curd using one whole egg two yolks, 1/3 cup juice, 6 aT butter. 2/3 cup sugar, and zest. (I have a container of sugar recently rubbed with zest).

I thought it was interesting that this method called for softened butter,while others want cold.

Any theories about why?

BTW, no favorites yet. They all taste great so far, so right now, it’s about how I want to use eggs. :person_shrugging:t4:

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Yesterday I made a batch of lime curd and today I made some lemon-lime curd to use up some limes gifted to us by a friend. It’s pretty easy, but not shelf-stable so it has to be refrigerated or frozen. It’s also right up my alley, too, because it calls for whole eggs. (I hate separating eggs!)

Lemon/Lime Curd
4 t zest
2/3 C juice
5 eggs
1 C sugar
1/2 C melted butter, slightly cooled

Put first four ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. With blender running at low speed, slowly pour melted butter in a steady stream until blended. Transfer mixture to the top of a double boiler and cook, stirring constantly, until mixture just begins to bubble and thickens, 170F. Portion into hot pint jars. Cover with lids and rings cool in refrigerator, then freeze when cooled.

Edited to add: I realized while transcribing the recipe that I used half the sugar called for, half a cup instead of a full cup. Mrs. ricepad likes tart things, so I may just modify my recipe to go with the smaller quantity.

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TLDR: Tie — blender, stovetop, double boiler.

https://www.thekitchn.com/best-lemon-curd-skills-showdown-23295291

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