I first read about this lemon cream recipe by S on Chubby Hubby’s blog. Having had much success with their other recipes (scones, popping candy chocolate cake etc), decided to give it a go to fill a batch of pastry tarts made using Heston Blumenthal’s recipe*. Honestly, I can eat teaspoon after teaspoon of this lemon curd on its own without a tart base. It’s that good and so, so easy to make. If you’re a fan of light, creamy lemon curd, I urge you to give it a go.
Having made it thrice successfully, here’s my recipe adapted from Chubby Hubbby’s take on Pierre Herme’s version.
Notes:
– Don’t need to run out for Meyer lemons, just regular lemons will suffice.
– I realised that having less butter worked just fine (and justifies why I can have more).
– Like S, I also have the curd made directly on the stove-top instead of a bain marie. All you need to do is make sure you don’t run off and do something else because the mixture turns to curd very quickly.
-I don’t use a fancy thermometer and just gauge it’s readiness by sight.
Pierre Herme’s Lemon Cream
Makes approx 750-800ml
200g castor sugar
zest of 3 lemons
4 large eggs (approx 50g each)
150ml of freshly squeezed lemon juice (3 lemons gets you approx this amt)
175g unsalted butter, cubed and softened
Get ready your blender and prepare a sieve that fits over the top.
Combine sugar and lemon zest in a bowl. Rub the sugar and zest together with your fingers until the mixture is moist and grainy. Then whisk in the eggs and the lemon juice.
Transfer the mixture into a heavy-bottomed pan/pot and put it directly on the stove top. Set to medium heat and whisk this mixture constantly. At first the mixture is pretty watery/gooey from all that egg, but there comes a point where it thickens within a few seconds. Use a spoon to test whether it’s ready. Dip your spoon into the mixture, lift it, run a finger down the back of the spoon (be careful!) and if it leaves a trail, the curd is ready.
Pull the curd off the heat and sieve it right into your food processor or blender. Stirring the mixture with a spoon helps it sieve faster. Let the mixture cool for about 15-20 minutes.
Blend on high while adding pieces of butter into the cream. About 5 pieces at a time is fine. Once all the butter has been incorporated, continue to blend for another 3-4 minutes so that it’s perfectly smooth and light.
The curd can be eaten immediately (and you most definitely will).
Or it can be refrigerated for 4 days or frozen for a month (seriously. that’s not going to happen).
*Heston Blumenthal’s Pastry Tart
Recipe can be found here.
Note that I omitted the lemon zest and the vanilla pod seeds.
The recipe was followed almost exactly. Except, instead of rolling out the dough, I just took small balls of dough and pressed them into tart moulds. After which, I flash froze them for about half an hour before popping them into the oven for 15-20 minutes. They puffed very slightly in the middle because I didn’t bother weighing them down with beans/coins.
Viola!
trufflehogs 