One bright spot during winter in Minnesota is the meyer lemons in grocery stores. Of course they aren’t grown here but are forced to this frozen land from sunny California. Oh, what a cruel fate! If fruit could be melodramatic, I’m sure meyer lemons would especially since they’re from the land of dime-a-dozen actors.
Anyway, if you’re not familiar with them meyer lemons are these perfect little lemons that are a cross between regular lemons and mandarin oranges. They’re sweeter than regular lemons and have a thinner peel.
When M called to tell me that our local co-op had meyer lemons, I told him to bring 10 home for me. What on earth I was going to do with 10 lemons, I wasn’t sure. But I darn well wasn’t going to miss the short meyer lemon season. We used some in margaritas, but I had a few left over that I wanted to use up. Thanks to my new friend Pinterest, I came across a recipe for meyer lemon curd.
I made the recipe, and it was like bottled sunshine. I nearly swooned and ate it all for myself. But I was good and sent some up to M’s work with a store bought pound cake (although I really wanted to keep it all for my greedy, piggy little self. I doubt even J would have gotten some).
I decided to make up another batch but wanted to try it without meyer lemons since they’re not available all the time. The traditional substitute for meyer lemons is half regular lemons and half oranges. I’ve also added a note in here about how to make lemon lavender curd in case you want to be all fancy. And don’t let the double boiler scare you. It’s just a mixing bowl set over a pot with an inch or two of boiling water.
Lemon Orange Curd
Yields about 3 cups
Ingredients:
- 1 stick of butter
- 1 cup of sugar
- Zest from 2 lemons and 1 large orange (or 4 meyer lemons)
- 4 eggs
- 1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice and 1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice (or 1 cup of meyer lemon juice). You’ll probably need 4 lemons and 3 large oranges to get this much juice. Remember to use the now naked ones that you just zested
- (optional) 1 tablespoon lavender buds
Directions:
1. Cut a stick of butter into 1 tablespoon pieces. Set the pieces out to soften. You may want to use the microwave to soften them up. It’s okay if they melt some.
Love me some butter!
2. Combine sugar and zest in a double boiler over medium heat and mix together for a few minutes. The heat will help release the oils and citrus-y goodness in the zest.
Zesty and sugary
Zest & sugar all mixed together
3. Turn heat down to low and whisk in lemon/orange juice and the eggs. Slowly turn the heat back up to medium.
Add eggs and juice
4. Keep whisking until the mixture thickens. This will take about 5 minutes or so. I usually crank the heat up a bit to medium high and then back down once it starts to thicken up. You don’t want the heat so high that you get scrambled eggs (also whisking will help avoid this). The mixture is done when it coats the back of a spoon or you can leave tracks through it with your whisk.
Nice and thick
5. Strain through a fine mesh strainer into a blender. This will remove the zest and any seeds or pulp. You’ll probably have to work the mixture through the strainer with a spatula.
Straining out the bits and pieces
6. Add butter to mixture in the blender and give it a whirl on high speed until it’s nice and smooth.
Add the butter
Whirling!
7. Chill in the refrigerator for at least 1/2 hour before serving. This will keep for 7-10 days in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
All bottled up...
... and gussied up
Don’t forget to clean your spatula!
Taste Tester
*Fancy lemon lavender curd option – steep 1 tablespoon of lavender buds in heated up lemon juice for 10 minutes. Strain to remove buds and follow the regular recipe. I would probably use only lemons, no oranges, if you go with this option.
Serving suggestions:
You can serve this delightful sauce over ice cream, pound cake, angel food cake, as a filling in a layer cake, in a smoothie, on blueberry pancakes, on an English muffin, over my lavender lemon shortbread cookies, on a blueberry bagel, on cheesecake, over strawberries or raspberries, on blondie brownies, or just eat it plain. I bet you could even add some to a vanilla ice cream base to make homemade lemon ice cream.
Or you could just bathe in the stuff. That would be fine too. And completely understandable.
