Until roughly a year ago, I didn’t even know lemon curd existed. What a sad, bleak existence that was. This stuff is great! Last week a recipe for lemon curd ice cream popped up in my google reader feed, and I knew I had to make some! To make the ice cream, though, first you have to make the curd. I quadrupled the recipe I usually use, as I wanted to make a bunch of ice cream, but I’ll just put the original recipe here, which makes roughly 2/3 of a cup of lemon curd. I’ve doubled it before, and now quadrupled it, and it comes out great no matter how much you make! Just be careful, if you’re making a ton, not to get bored and wander off when you should be stirring.

Whisk together lemon juice, lemon zest, sugar and an egg in a saucepan. Stir in chunks of butter.

Looks about like you'd expect...

Put it over medium low heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens enough to start holding marks from your whisk/spatula, and bubbles just start to appear. For a single batch, this should only take 4 or 5 minutes. For larger batches, it’ll take a bit longer. Once it’s thickened, transfer it to a bowl, cover, and chill in the fridge until cold.

Bowl, measuring cup, whatever... oh look 2 2/3 cup is enough for two batches of ice cream! How convenient!

Once it’s cooled, you can spread it on toast for a good breakfast…

If you look closely you can still see little bits of zest in there.

Use it as a layer in a trifle…

That was a fun day=)

Or turn it into ice cream! All valid options. Ice cream recipe coming up next!

Lemon Curd

From smitten kitchen (scroll down, it’s underneath the main recipe)

• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 3/4 teaspoon fresh lemon zest, finely grated
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Whisk together juice, zest, sugar, and egg in a 1-quart heavy saucepan. Stir in butter and cook over moderately low heat, whisking frequently, until curd is thick enough to hold marks of whisk and first bubble appears on surface, about 4 to 5 minutes. Transfer lemon curd to a bowl and chill, its surface covered with plastic wrap, until cold, at least 1 hour.