My (Mis)adventures in lemon curd

I've not blogged for a long time. It seems that work, life, and sleep have been more important, with heavy emphasis on that last one. My workout schedule has been taking a toll, and of course I haven't been baking, because well I have a wicked sweet tooth and zero willpower. I can totally not buy them in the store,  but homemade fuggetaboutit.

Any-who, I have a loaded lemon tree and about six cups of juice already in my freezer. I feel bad about throwing them about being nature's abundance and all, soooo, when life gives you lemons you make lemon curd, except this was my first time and well I kind of goofed, but again instead of throwing it out, found ways to turn my imperfect lemon curd into some sunshiny lemon goodness.

The recipe I used was called "simple lemon curd." It wasn't a bad recipe but needed to be altered; it called for too much butter(I like my lemon curd tart and somewhat transluscent) and didn't call for eggs to be tempered before adding and needless to say I was straining scrambled egg bits out of my curd, ikkkhh. I won't post the recipe for those two reasons. You can only alter a recipe so much and then it's a different recipe.

So the first thing I made was a vanilla cake with lemon curd filing and lemon buttercream. Aside from the two pieces I sent home with my daughter, this is all that's left:

My husbands been loafing around the house with a triangle of cake for the last two days, no plate, no fork just the slice; I guess he liked it. 

Vanilla lemon curd cake:

Ingredients

• 2 cups white sugar
• 1 cup butter
• 4 eggs
• 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon vanilla paste
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon and 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 1/2  cups milk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour two 8 inch round pans or line a muffin pan with paper liners.
2. In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine flour and baking powder, add to the creamed mixture and mix well. Finally stir in the milk until batter is smooth. Pour or spoon batter into the prepared pan.
3. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven. For cupcakes, bake 20 to 25 minutes. Cake is done when it springs back to the touch.

altered from here:http://allrecipes.com/recipe/simple-white-cake/detail.aspx

Fill cake with about 1/2 cup of lemon curd, homemade or store bought. Then ice cake with recipe below.

Basic Lemon Buttercream
Yield: Makes about 4 cups

Ingredients:
12 ounces (3 sticks) Unsalted Butter, softened
1 lb. Confectioners’ Sugar, sifted
1/2 cup lemon curd (homemade or from a jar)
½ tsp. Pure Vanilla Extract

Directions:
Beat butter with a mixer on medium-high speed until pale and creamy, about 2 minutes.

Reduce speed to medium. Add sugar, ½ cup at a time, beating after each addition, about 5 minutes. (After every 2 additions, increase speed to high, and beat for 10 seconds, then reduce speed to medium-high). Add vanilla and lemon curd. Beat until buttercream is smooth. Use immediately, or cover and refrigerate for up to 3 days. (Bring to room temperature, and beat on low speed until smooth before using.
I cut this recipe in half and I was shy about 1/2 cup, but didn't do a crumb coat.

original icing recipe: http://slowlikehoney.net/2011/07/12/lemon-layer-cake-with-lemon-curd-frosting/

And because I still had lemon curd left, I made these little thumbprint cookies.

Recipe: (I left the lemon curd intact, but not the recipe I used for curd.)

Spoon-dent cookies with lemon curd
from Donna Hay magazine

Lemon curd*:½ cup (120ml) lemon juice
zest of the juiced lemons
125g unsalted butter, chopped
1 cup (200g) sugar
3 eggs, beaten

Cookie dough:180g unsalted butter, softened
1 cup (200g) sugar
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 egg
2 cups (280g) all purpose flour, sifted
½ teaspoon baking powder

Start with the curd: place the lemon juice, zest, butter, sugar and eggs in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan if rapidly simmering water. Cook, stirring continuously, for 20 minutes or until mixture has thickened slightly. Pass through a sieve into a glass/ceramic bowl and cover with plastic wrap touching the surface of the curd to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate until cool and thick.

Make the cookie dough: preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF; line two large baking sheets with baking paper.

Place the butter, sugar and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until light and creamy. Add the egg and beat well. Using a spatula, stir through the flour and baking powder to form a dough. Roll 2 teaspoons of the mixture into balls and place onto prepared sheets 5cm (2in) apart.
Press deep dents into the middle of the balls with the back of a small teaspoon, wetting the spoon if the dough starts to stick – I though it was easier to do that with my index fingertip.
Fill each of the indents with ½ teaspoon of the cooled lemon curd and bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden.

* there was some curd left – I think that ¾ of the recipe should be enough to fill all the cookies

Makes 35 – I halved the recipe and still got 24



Original recipe found here:http://technicolorkitcheninenglish.blogspot.com/2009/05/spoon-dent-cookies-with-lemon-curd.html

I think I may make little lemon meringue tarts with the rest. Phew! I guess I made up for lost time, until later, toodles.