♥ Very Best Lemon Butter {Lemon Curd}
3 large eggs
3 large egg yolks
2/3 cup sugar
1 Tblsp. Lemon zest {2-3 lemons}
1/2 cup lemon juice {4-6 fresh lemons}
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup butter {cold/room temp}
Equipment:
⇒Sturdy Whisk
⇒Stainless steel bowl
⇒Pot of water on the stove set to boil {this will be the bottom pot for a “double boiler” so choose a pot that will allow your bowl to touch the boiling water}
⇒SS mesh strainer
This recipe takes time… so be prepared to take your time. 🙂
Assemble your ingredients… Before you juice your lemons, zest them first! It’s too hard to do this after they’re juiced. You’ll know this from previous preps for lemon meringue pie!! Place all but the butter into the bowl {it will become the “top” to your “double boiler”}.
Whisk-whisk-whisk the ingredients – all but the butter. Set the bowl on top of the boiling water pot. Whisk. Whisk. Whisk. You’ll be whisking this continually for the next ten to 12 minutes or so. At around five or six minutes it will begin to thicken, keep on whisking it… at about the ten minute mark, it will have become nice and thick… go ahead and whisk it a tad more. You may need pot holders to grip the bowl or the stream will burn your fingers!
Remove the bowl from the stove pot; set it on a towel on your counter, begin adding butter a scoop at a time, over and over whisking it like crazy! Add and whisk, add and whisk, add and whisk in the butter until it’s all smoothly incorporated.
⇒ N
ow put your ⇒strainer over a clean bowl, pour your Lemon Butter into the strainer and press with a wide spoon all over the sides until all you have left in the mesh strainer is the lemon zest (and perhaps bits of lemon or bits of cooked egg).
Scrape off the outer side of the strainer. Lick the spoon. Yum. Cover the bowl with plastic film, let it cool completely and then refrigerate it. Or eat some of it warm and put the rest in the fridge to thicken. When you want to use it in a recipe or serve it with tightly whipped cream and scones/biscuits/tea cake, just stir the Lemon Butter {lemon curd} a bit before putting it into your serving dish.
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♥ This recipe works well in multiples for larger quantity cooking/recipes. It works very well for the lemon base to Lemon Cheesecake Mousse. I’ll post that recipe on another page. This Lemon Butter {curd} recipe is the base for it.
♥ After revising this a few times, I much prefer this recipe for “Lemon Butter” {lemon curd} to Rose’s Lemon Curd (p. 205 of Rose’s Heavenly Cakes). Very, very rarely would I tell you I prefer another version of one of her recipes. This would be one of those very rare occasions.
