When life gives you lemons...

Make Lemon Curd.....

My lemon tree is covered with lemons right now, and my hens are laying up a storm. I have been wanting to try my hand at making lemon curd, but thought it was way too hard. I love lemon anything and years ago a friend gave me a jar of Lemon Curd for Christmas. Then I came upon a recipe on a blog I really like called Chickens in the Road. She made it look pretty easy and since I have the canning bug right now I decided "what the heck". First I had Allison pick the lemons and bring in the eggs. Washed them up and zested them. I used some of the zest in the recipe and dried the rest to put in other baked things.

I squeezed the juice...

and measured precisely.. (wink wink)

It calls for really good, basic ingredients. And pretty much anything can be made good or even better with butter..I cut this into little bits.

I inherited this double boiler from my mother in law. I love it. Measure the sugar into the top of your boiler and add the lemon juice. If you don't have one you can use a saucepan with a bowl on top.

Separate 4 of the eggs and add them and the other 4 whole eggs to the lemon juice sugar mixture. Do this before it gets hot or you will cook the eggs. Another way is to temper the eggs by taking some of the hot liquid out and adding it to the eggs first then adding the eggs into the liquid. If you don't do this you will cook the eggs. This is not the goal. You will have to start over. Not good. Add your zest.

I broke a yolk. heheheheh

Stir constantly until your mixture starts to thicken, and add the butter. I had already washed the jars in hot soapy water and put the lids into warm water so I was all ready when this got thick enough. I put the jars I will be using into my Hot water bath canner and heat up the water.

Take one jar at a time out of your canner and fill it up. I left about 1/2 inch head space, wipe the jar and put put the lid on finger tight.Place your jar into the water bath as you fill it. I processed mine for 15 minutes after the water came back up to a full rolling boil.

I got a little more than 2 pints from this recipe. After reading a really good article on the acidity in lemons needed for proper canning I decided to keep both jars in the fridge just in case. My lemons are Meyer and they are lower in acidity then a few of the other lemons that are actually better for canning. ask me if I care though, since one jar is gone already.

I baked a yellow, two layer cake for Easter and filled it with this curd. Oh My Gosh. DELICIOUS.
I am planning on making some more of this. It was easy and very good. I may try to find out about raising the acid level a bit so I can give away a few jars.

I also made some Marmalade from my blood oranges. But that another whole story!!! I'll save it for later.

Blessings, Sue