Homemade Lemon Curd and Lemon Scones

This week I attempted to make my first ever homemade jam. It actually wasn’t a jam at all, but lemon curd, which seemed a lot simpler for a first try and apparently almost everyone loves it! It was actually really easy to make and the result was delicious, so it’s a very rewarding project for a quiet afternoon.

What you need:

The zest and juice of 4 lemons
4 eggs, beaten
125g unsalted butter, cubed
450g granulated butter
Sterilised jars (this mixture filled 2 standard sized jars of about 300g)

The method:

Stir all the ingredients together in a heatproof bowl.
Place the bowl over a pan of simmering water, making sure the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water.
Stir the mixture whilst the butter melts and sugar dissolves, and then continue to cook and stir until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of the spoon.
If there are white bits in the mixture, this is due to the egg whites cooking more quickly than the rest. I checked many placed online and this is definitely normal! You can (and I did) strain the mixture through a sieve so that the lemon curd is smooth.
Spoon the lemon curd into the jars and leave too cool completely before putting the lids on.

I’m not exactly sure how long you can store it for as different sources say different things (approx. 2 months unopened and approx. 2 weeks in the fridge once opened. I cannot verify either of these though as there is no danger of mine going off – it’s already half gone!

To complete my baking spree I decided to bake a batch of mini lemon scones to serve alongside the lemon curd. I used the “lemon and poppy seed scones” recipe from John Whaite’s book and just removed the poppy seeds. I also increased the quantities by half again, and reduced the size of the cutter from his suggested 7cm to a 5cm one. I thought this might make about 25 scones but actually I ended up with a giant heap of about 40 mini lemon scones! Yum! It was a good job I’d planned to take some a BBQ or I’d have been struggling with them!

This was the first recipe I’ve tried from his book, and was very impressed with the result. It was a very easy-to-follow recipe, and although it seemed different to any scone recipes I’ve tried before I really enjoyed the results!