Tag Archives: lemon curd

Sweet Nosh – Homemade Lemon Curd and Almond Scones

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scone lemon curd and almond n

Creamy, sweet lemon curd is the perfect partner to a freshly baked almond scone for a light breakfast or an afternoon nosh. See lemon curd and scone recipes below.

Any excuse to make lemon curd is a good excuse. I’ve been playing around with a lemon lava cake recipe and decided the ingredient it needed is lemon curd. With the lava cake in mind, I whipped up four cups of this zesty conserve, which happened to be more than my recipe required. What to do? Enjoy the tangy, sweet, creamy curd with a freshly baked batch of almond scones.

I’ve made many iterations of scones in my kitchen, but lemon curd seemed to fit with savory almond flavor as opposed to blends of fruits or other sweet ingredients.

The curd is a cinch to make. The Meyer lemons that grow in our backyard in Sacramento would have been the choice ingredient, but even without our favorite Meyers on hand in our Arctic kitchen, we can make a darn good curd with Nellie & Joe’s brand lemon juice and Penzeys dried lemon peel. The small scones, too, are a snap to make. The time it took from gathering pantry ingredients to pulling freshly baked scones from the oven was only about half an hour – about as long as it takes to have a first cup of Joe and get fully awake on a leisurely weekend or holiday morning.

Pantry Lemon Curd

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 tbsp Penzeys dried lemon peel
  • 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
  • 5 eggs
  • 1/2 cup lemon juice
  • pinch salt
  • 1/4 lb unsalted butter, room temperature

Directions

  1. In a medium bowl, mix together lemon peel and sugar.
  2. Whisk eggs into sugar mixture, one at a time.
  3. Whisk in lemon juice and salt.
  4. Pour mixture into a medium pot. Add butter in pieces.
  5. Cook over low heat until thickened, about 10 minutes.
  6. Remove from heat and let cool before serving with fresh-baked almond scones hot from the oven.
  7. Store any leftovers in a covered container in the refrigerator.

Snack-Sized Almond Scones

Ingredients

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • healthy pinch salt
  • 1/3 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 tbsp frozen butter
  • 1/3 cup whole milk
  • 1/3 cup buttermilk
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp almond extract
  • 1/2 cup sliced almonds

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  2. In a medium mixing bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar.
  3. Using a cheese grater, grate butter into flour mixture. Stir until butter is well dispersed in flour.
  4. In a second bowl, whisk together whole milk, buttermilk, egg, and extract.
  5. Pour wet ingredients into dry. Stir together.
  6. Stir in almonds. Dough will be sticky.
  7. Coat your hands with flour and divide dough into thirds.
  8. Flatten each third into a disc about 1-inch tall. Place 3 discs apart on parchment-covered baking sheet. Cut each disc into fourths, but do not separate. This will allow the scones to be broken easily when they are finished baking.
  9. Bake for about 15 minutes. Scones will be very lightly browned when done.
  10. Serve with hot tea and homemade lemon curd.

Lemon Brioche Croissants

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Flaky and buttery croissants made from scratch using brioche dough. Stuff them with anything you like – I chose homemade lemon curd.

We leave for the summer in six days. After surveying the pantry for what will not survive three months, we determined the lemon juice, coconut and salsa are on the “must finish” list. Obviously, no recipe is going to take care of all three ingredients in one fell swoop — not one I’d want to eat, anyway! Salsa chicken and rice will be on this week’s menu. Coconut butter cookies for the staff potluck. And lemon curd stuffed croissants for breakfast.

From a culinary and baking standpoint, this summer should be interesting. We’ve cooked for weeks at a time in our camper. We’ve also cooked for weeks on a Coleman stove while tent and boat camping. This summer, it will be all galley cooking on our sailboat, Bandon. We’re both eager to outfit her galley with the least amount of quality tools that will help us with the most culinary tasks. We are also excited to fish the south central waters of Alaska and cook up the freshest and tastiest seafood for ourselves and our guests. Stay tuned to see what will be created from the galley of Bandon!

Lemon Brioche Croissants

makes 8 croissants

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup whole milk
  • 1/8 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 1/2 – 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 tbsp instant yeast
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 3/4 cup soft unsalted butter
  • 3/4 cup lemon curd or other filling (see below for separate lemon curd recipe)

Directions

  1. Pour milk in saucepan and heat until lukewarm.
  2. Pour milk in mixing bowl. Add sugar. Mix until incorporated.
  3. Beat eggs. Pour eggs into milk mixture. Mix until incorporated.
  4. Add 1/2 cup of flour. Mix until incorporated.
  5. Add yeast and a second 1/2 cup of flour. Mix until incorporated. I switched to a dough hook on the mixer at this point.
  6. Add salt and last 1/2 cup of flour. Mix again until incorporated. Dough should be sticky.
  7. Mix butter into dough in increments of about 2 tbsp at a time.
  8. Once the butter is completed incorporated, cover dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, or overnight.
  9. After at least 4 hours, place the dough on a lightly floured surface.
  10. Roll the dough out to form a circle with about a 15-inch diameter.
  11. Cut dough into 8 pieces (pizza style) using a pizza wheel, forming 8 triangles.
  12. Place a heaping tbsp of lemon curd near the base of the triangle.
  13. Roll dough from base of triangle toward point.
  14. Curve into a crescent shape and pinch ends closed.
  15. Place croissants on parchment-lined baking sheet and cover sheet with plastic wrap. Let rest for 45 minutes.
  16. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F while dough is resting. Bake croissants for 15 – 20 minutes until lightly browned.
  17. Cool on a wire rack.

Lemon Curd

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup lemon juice
  • 3/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) softened unsalted butter
  • zest of one orange (about a tablespoon)

Directions

  1. Mix together lemon juice, sugar, eggs, and zest. Mix in butter 1/4 cup at a time.
  2. Place bowl on simmering pot of water (double boiler). Stirring constantly, cook until mixture reaches 160 degrees F (about 10 minutes).
  3. Store covered in refrigerator. I used a mason jar.

The above recipe used about half of the lemon curd. Enjoy the extra on scones, with yogurt, or to replace jam in any other recipe.

Croissant recipe adapted from http://www.cookingbread.com/classes/class_lemon_brioche_croissants.html

Lemon curd recipe adapted from http://www.recipegirl.com/2008/11/10/meyer-lemon-curd/

Flipped Lemon Meringue Cookies

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Imagine the tart creaminess of lemon meringue infused with orange zest sitting on a crisp, airy cookie ready to be devoured in one scrumptious bite. You’ll flip when you taste these cookies!

You know those beautiful Parisian macarons? Smooth and glossy, perfectly round and filled with creamy flavors? This cookie recipe allowed me to practice with the elements of the macaron – especially the meringue. And I got to play with a Kitchen Aid mixer for the first time.

Jack and I do our best to keep our kitchen to a minimum and have been debating about whether this appliance is worth its weight in counter space. Recently, we borrowed a Kitchen Aid mixer to take for a test drive. Our thoughts? This machine is pretty incredible. It beat the egg whites and confectioners’ sugar into a consistency we doubt we could have achieved by hand or even with a hand-held mixer — and after 20 minutes of steady mixing, no one was tired! The meringue was stiff and glossy and fluffy, just like it’s supposed to be. Even after scooping the meringue into a Ziploc and piping it out, it didn’t loose any volume. I think that was due to the mixer. The meringue baked perfectly, despite my inexperience in piping. We’ll see how often we use this mixer, but we’re sold on it for heavy mixing jobs.

The cookies took time in that leisurely Sunday kind of way. First I made the lemon curd and put it in the refrigerator to chill. After a while, I made the cookie shell. Then, when the shell and the curd were both cooled, I assembled the cookies. I found it easy to eliminate the evidence of my first attempts at piping, which were not pretty, but were tasty!  The technique which I settled on was to pipe the meringue in a spiral, starting in the center, with the last two spirals going vertical. This made a nice little cup for the lemon curd.

Flipped Lemon Meringue Cookies

Ingredients:

For Lemon Curd –

  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 large egg and 1 egg yolk
  • 1/2 cup lemon juice
  • 2 tsp orange zest
  • 3 tbsp melted unsalted butter

For Meringue –

  • 4 egg whites
  • 2 cups confectioners’ sugar

Directions

  1. In a medium pot, mix together curd ingredients, except butter (granulated sugar, egg and egg yolk, lemon juice and orange zest).
  2. Whisk continually over medium heat until mixture thickens and coats a spoon (about 10 minutes). Stir  in melted butter.
  3. Pour into a sealed container and refrigerate until cold.
  4. While the curd is chilling, make the meringue cookies.
  5. Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.
  6. Take the 4 egg whites and beat on medium speed until they develop soft peaks (peaks will bend when you remove beaters)
  7. Beat eggs whites at high speed while adding confectioners’ sugar by the tablespoon, making sure the sugar is mixed in before adding next tablespoon. The final product should have stiff peaks and be somewhat glossy and thick.
  8. Pour into a piping bag with a small tip. (I used a Ziploc bag with the corner cut off).
  9. Pipe a tight spiral from the center out, layering the outside spiral twice so you have about an inch-diameter cookie with a cup to hold the curd.
  10. Bake for 60 minutes on a parchment lined baking sheet. Slight cracking is OK. The cookies should easily come off the parchment paper when finished. Let cool.
  11. Fill meringue cookie with lemon curd.
  12. Store in covered container in refrigerator.