Archive for: lemon curd
Whenever I have a lot of lemons in my kitchen, I usually make a fresh batch of lemon curd. I am a big fan of the creamy, tangy curd and will put it on fresh fruit, scones, slices of cake and just about anything else I can think of. Another great use for it is putting it into a batch of ice cream. With the zesty lemon curd as a base, you get a very bright and fresh tasting ice cream with loads of lemon flavor and very little effort.
I use my favorite Low Fat Lemon Curd as a base for this recipe. The curd is low in fat because, unlike other lemon curds, it doesn’t use any butter but still delivers a smooth and creamy finished product. I also like the fact that the curd is quite tart, which makes it work very well in this Lemon Curd Ice Cream. The basic method is to make your lemon curd and chill it, then mix it with half and half and a small amount of additional confectioners’ sugar (when served cold, ice cream will taste less sweet than the base alone, so it’s always a good idea to have a little extra sugar). Chill it in an ice cream maker and you’re ready to eat!
The finished product is very light and creamy, with a great lemon flavor and a tangy finish. It actually reminds me a lot of lemon sherbert – only better than just about every kind I can remember tasting. You do need an ice cream maker to get the best result. You can make a slightly more granita-like version by pouring your base into a shallow container and putting it in the freezer, then stirring it every 30 minutes with a mixer or a fork until well-frozen. Serve this on its own, with fresh fruit, whipped cream or put a small scoop into a flute and top with champagne for a zesty spring cocktail!
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While I do enjoy a good slice of cheesecake, I prefer to make cheesecake bars at home when I’m looking for a cheesecake fix. They’re easy to make, have a short baking time and don’t need to be baked in a water bath. They also make a great basic recipe for putting all kinds of variations on for different flavors. For this batch, I wanted to add a key lime element to my cheesecake bars and get the richness of cheesecake and the tang of a key lime pie in one dessert.
Most of the flavor comes from a homemade key lime curd that is swirled into the cheesecake batter before baking. This curd is a twist on a lower fat lemon curd recipe that I absolutely love. Made with tart key lime juice, the curd is very bright and citrusy. It makes for a nice contrast with the rich tasting cream cheese filling. I simply added a few dollops of the curd into the cheesecake and lightly swirled it around with a butter knife before baking. In some places where there was more curd than others, the lime curd sank below the cheesecake (other places it remained lightly swirled on top), creating a nice layered effect. The whole dessert is much less sweet than key lime pie, with a wonderfully rich cheesecake texture and a very refreshing lime flavor. If you don’t have key limes, you can use regular limes in the recipe for lime curd.
The bars have a vanilla crumb crust that is made with crushed vanilla wafer cookies and butter, and is baked and cooled before being filled with cheesecake mixture. Graham crackers would work for the crust, as well, but the vanilla adds a nice mellow flavor that goes very well with the flavor of the cream cheese. The crust holds up very well to the filling without getting soggy, and while it would be crumbly if you tried to slice it on its own, the filling adds the perfect amount of moisture to keep it together and still slice easily.
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A cake doesn’t have to be a cupcake just because it is small. Leave off the piles of frosting and the colorful wrapper and you have an individually sized dessert that is a simple, elegant way to finish off a dinner with family or friends. These little Macadamia Nut Cakes are definitely not cupcakes, but they sure are tasty. The recipe is a riff on one of Jacques Pepin’s cake recipes, which is included in his cookbook, More Fast Food My Way. He used almonds in his version and says that they’re a very simple, very french dessert. My version of these cakes uses buttery macadamia nuts. I love these nuts in just about everything that you could put them in, but in these cakes they add a lot of body and richness to what is an incredibly simple cake.
When I say simple, I mean it. These cakes have just a handful of ingredients and are whipped up in seconds in the food processor. If you don’t have a food processor, you could try using almond meal (ground macadamia nuts would be very difficult to find in most places), but you’ll really get the best results when starting with whole nuts. The finished cakes are light, fluffy and tender. They have a great overall macadamia nut flavor, with bright notes of lemon and a hint of rum. The cakes aren’t too sweet, and while they’re tasty as-is, they pair very well with fresh berries, whipped cream or even a scoop of ice cream. Since I added lemon zest into my cake batter, I topped these cakes off with a dollop of lemon curd and a twist of lemon to dress up the presentation.
If you’re not going to serve these cakes right away – and they can be served warm if you do want to serve them immediately, although they will come out of the wrappers more cleanly if you allow them to cool – you can make them a day ahead and store them in an airtight container before dressing them up. The recipe can be doubled if you want to serve a crowd, but also be halved for an even smaller serving if, like me, you just want to treat yourself once in a while.
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With a bright, sunny-tasting recipe like this one for lemon flavored cupcakes filled with lemon curd, I’m always tempted to try and come up with a cute name for the cakes. Sunny Cupcakes. Lemon Heaven Cupcakes. Juicy Lemon Cupcakes. But I usually like to know what I’m getting when I look at the name of a recipe, so I end up coming back to the simple, but clear, Lemon Cupcakes Filled with Lemon Curd. I just dub them with a cute name when I bring them out to serve.
I was inspired to make these cupcakes after catching a few minutes of a Food Network show where a baking contestant (on the Ultimate Recipe Showdown) made something similar with a cake mix. I couldn’t resist doing a from-scratch version, just like I couldn’t resist doing a from-scratch version of the first place Double Delight Peanut Butter Cookies that won the Pillsbury Bake-Off last year.
I kept the lemon flavor in the cupcakes subtle, so that the lemon curd really has a chance to stand out, and added some vanilla into the batter, as well. A vanilla and lemon cupcake also cuts the zestiness of the curd a little and allows the whole thing to come together (so you’re not tasting a mouthful of lemon curd – not that there’s anything wrong with that!). I used the lemon curd recipe that I usually use for this batch of cupcakes, but I doubled it so that I would have plenty of curd to work with. I like a lot of curd in my cupcakes. If you don’t want to make your own, it’s perfectly fine to use store-bought lemon curd or your other favorite recipe.
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Passion fruit, also sometimes written as passionfruit, is one of the best smelling fruits out there. Ripe fruit has a stong, sweet, floral scent that just makes you feel as though you’re somewhere tropical. More often than not, the passion fruits sold in US markets are a bit on the dry side, so I’m always thrilled when I can get my hands on some fresh, plump fruits. The two that inspired this batch of curd came from a friend who grows them.
The curd is made the same way as a lemon curd or a lime curd, using the juice of the passion fruit and combining it with sugar and eggs. Passion fruits usually have a fair amount of tart juice to give off when you cut into them, and you can extract some more by pressing the seeds and pulp through a strainer. I like to reserve the seeds and stir some in at the end of the curd-making process, and I do it for the same reasons that most passion fruit recipes do. It’s partially because the seeds are a dead-giveaway for the passion fruit flavor, but also because the black seeds at a nice contrasting color and texture to the mix.
If the scones in the picture look familiar, it’s because I served this curd with the coconut scones I posted the recipe for earlier this week. The combination of the coconut and passion fruit made for a very tropical treat. The passion fruit will go with many other dishes, from pancakes and waffles, to scones and muffins of almost any flavor. You can use it in place of lemon curd in tarts, cupcakes and cookies, as well.
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