The Perfect Curd

The many secrets to getting the perfect curd

Not to start off on a bad note but I have beef with a lot of curd recipes, so many either taste of egg, don’t set properly, aren’t smooth or have barely any flavour. I wanted to create a curd recipe that can be adjusted to work with any fruit juice or puree, sets firmly enough to be used in between cake layers and packs a punch.

I started off with classic lemon curd, lemons are naturally high in citric acid which along with the eggs and butter helps the curd to set, I knew that once I got this recipe sorted it would be easy to play around with flavour variations. So let’s get to tackling the issues.

First up the eggy-ness issue, obviously you can’t just remove all the egg because the curd won’t set so I played around with different quantities of egg and egg yolk and found that a higher proportion of yolk resulted in a less eggy curd and added a lovely smooth, velvety texture. As a result this recipe is quite yolk heavy, luckily egg whites freeze well and I have a tonne of egg white recipes coming up, see next weeks newsletter 👀.

Onto getting the perfect silky texture. There are quite a few variables that affect the texture, we’ve already dealt with the eggs so now onto the cooking, we’re using a bain marie (cooking over a pan of boiling water) this heats the curd gently and stops the eggs from scrambling. Also worth noting, I always use a whisk rather than a spatula when cooking curds, it breaks up any chunks better than a spatula and gives you a smoother end product.

Onto incorporating the butter, this is possibly the most important bit! Before adding the butter the curd has to cool to around 30°C-40°C (warm to the touch but not hot!) doing this means that when you add the butter it doesn’t completely melt. Ever melted butter and let it re-set? You’ll notice that it doesn’t set to the same creamy consistency, the fat separates from the liquids during the melting process and when it cools they remain separated, the same happens when you add butter to a curd (or anything else really) giving the final product a slightly gritty texture. Although this isn’t always noticeable, I definitely think it’s worth waiting the extra five minutes for it to cool down.

The last step is sieve your curd! You’re always going to get those weird gloppy bits of egg white, little lumps from the side of the bowl and of course the zest is in there. The zest has done its job by this point, the flavour is infused, it doesn’t need to be there anymore.

Now onto flavour variations! This recipe works with any fruit juice or puree, the most important thing is that whatever your using has a strong flavour and enough acidity, the acid is essential to make the curd set as well as the flavour, when making curds with less acidic fruits e.g. oranges, blueberries etc. I always add some citric acid, 5g is the maximum amount you can add into this recipe without it blowing your socks off. Some of my favourite flavours are blackcurrant & lime (pictured) or blood orange & raspberry. Read more about citric acid and it’s used here.

Ok lets get to it (I didn’t think it was possible to waffle on about curd for so long)

Lemon Curd

Ingredients

160g lemon juice (about 5 lemons but you must weigh it!)

160g caster sugar

2 lemons (zest only)

2 large eggs (100g)

4 large egg yolks (70g)

80g soft butter

Pinch citric acid (optional, I add citric acid if i’m diluting the curd in some way e.g. mixing it into buttercream)

Method

1. Boil a pan of water, once boiling reduce the heat to just below a simmer.

2. Weigh everything apart from the butter into a large metal bowl, whisking between each addition.

3. Place the bowl over the pan of boiling water and whisk the curd continuously until it thickens and any froth disappears from the top, I tend to do this by eye but if you want to check the temperature, it should be about 85°C (185°F).

4. Remove from the heat and leave to cool to between 30°C to 40°C (85 to 104°F), whisking occasionally to prevent a skin forming. Now is the perfect time to do a bit of washing up!

5. Once cool enough add the butter a bit at a time, if you’re having trouble getting it to incorporate or it’s got a bit too cold you can use a hand blender to help you out.

6. Finally, sieve it and use however you like!