The Apple Diaries 2015 - Bramley Lemon Curd

Apologies for not adding to this blog for ages; I have been doing a bit more apple cooking, but I'm now totally out of jars so can't manage any more preserving for now, and we are feeling rather puddinged-out, so no more appley puds...  for a little while anyway!  Both of Delia's Pork and Apple dishes (blogged about earlier this Autumn) have made a reappearance recently, and I have stewed pans full of apples, nothing added, simply to use as apple sauce with roast pork meals in the coming months.  These are frozen, awaiting a time when we can no longer simply pop outside to grab an apple or two from the tree.  I also keep a bowl of unsweetened stewed apple in the fridge which I am eating for breakfast with granola and Greek Yoghurt.

Having said that I have now run out of jars, I used my final few for a slightly unusual preserve that I have been dying to try ever since I saw it in one of my favourite books ,the wonderful 'Preserves'  by Pam Corbin (a River Cottage Handbook):  Bramley Lemon Curd.  You might think nothing could beat a traditional lemon curd, but I agree with Pam Corbin that this is actually even nicer - she describes it as 'like eating apples and custard: softly sweet, tangy and quite, quite delicious'.  Irresistable.

Bramley Lemon Curd

450g Bramley apples, peeled, cored and chopped
Finely grated zest and juice of 2 unwaxed lemons (you need 100ml juice)
125g unsalted butter
450g granulated sugar
4-5 large eggs (you need 200ml beaten egg)

Put the chopped apple into a  pan with 100ml water and the lemon zest.  Cook gently  until soft and fluffy, then either beat to a smooth puree with a wooden spoon or rub through a nylon sieve (I went with the beating option, and didn't worry that it wasn't perfectly smooth).

Put the butter, sugar, lemon juice and apple puree into a double boiler or heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water (I like to live dangerously so just threw them all into a saucepan over a low heat and made sure to stir constantly!).

As soon as the butter is melted and the mixture is hot and glossy, pour in the eggs through a sieve (or don't bother with sieving them; I don't) and whisk with a balloon whisk.  If the fruit puree is too hot when the beaten eggs is added the egg will 'split'.   If you want to guard against this you can use a sugar thermometer - the mix should be no hotter than 55-60C when the egg is added.  If the curd does split, take the pan off the heat and whisk  vigorously until smooth.

Stir the mixture over a gentle heat, scraping down the sides of the bowl every few minutes, until thick and creamy.  This will take 9-10 minutes (in my experience this is a conservative estimate, mine takes at least 15, so don't panic!); the temperature should reach 82-84C on a sugar thermometer.  Immediately pour into warm sterilised jars and seal.  Use within 4 weeks (again, a conservative figure, I think it's OK for a  bit longer than this, but your call); once opened, keep in the fridge.

The recipe says this makes  5 225g jars, but I used jars of a variety of sizes and got 3 jars of the size pictured below (a Bonne Maman jar) and 1 slightly smaller one.  2 have been given as gifts and the other 2 are mine, all mine!

Lemon Macarons

Like all teachers, I've been looking forward to this long Summer break for months.  Time seems elastic at this time of year, stretching out for far longer than it should over the last bittersweet few weeks of the school year, but then racing away at top speed as soon as the holiday starts.  Consequently my long to-do-list for the Summer holidays is still... long.

One thing that I have managed to achieve though is making macarons.  I've been planning to make these again ever since being inspired by Ben, but it's the kind of thing that takes some planning - aging the egg whites for a few days, leaving the macarons to dry out slightly before cooking, etc.  It definitely helps to be around all day when you're making them.

The recipe I used is the one I've used before, and can be found here.  As I'm still on my lemon-kick I decided to go with that flavour for the macarons.

My Meri White is a little (*cough* 2 years...) out of date, but it smelled and tasted OK so I used it anyway...  'Best Before, not Poisonous After' is my motto!   I wanted to flavour the macarons themselves as well as the filling, so added half a tsp of Boyajian Lemon Oil to the batter, as well as some yellow colouring.

I might have gone a little over the top with the yellow colouring actually, it's certainly very 'sunny'.  But I like it.

I did use the food processor to get rid of the lumps in my icing sugar and ground almonds, but even so my macaron shells still weren't perfectly smooth.  I very lazily didn't pipe them either, but just used a teaspoon.  Pierre Herme would not be impressed.

They cooked beautifully at 120 degrees C, for 15 minutes.  They didn't brown at all, and did develop the macaron 'foot' as they rose.

I filled them with a white chocolate ganache (simply melted white chocolate with a spoonful of mascarpone stirred in to loosen it) and my home-made lemon curd.  I put a ring of the ganache onto the shell, and then a blob of the curd in the centre.  The tartness of the lemon curd is a lovely contrast with the sweetness of the chocolate.

As you can see, they don't look nearly as professional as Ben's macarons, they're distinctly lumpy and rather more rustic-looking (they're also about twice the size due to my inept teaspooning).  However, when they're just for home consumption it's the taste that counts, and these taste great.  A crispy outer encloses a chewy inner, and they just seem to get better, chewier, the longer you keep them in the fridge. 

I know Ben will want to know this - yes, a few of the macaron shells were almost hollow, while others weren't.  I wonder why this happens?

At least that's one holiday project successfully accomplished!

Lemon Curd

It's time to make more lemon curd.  The last jar disappeared within days, mainly eaten by me for breakfast on toast (and a fair bit was transported straight into my mouth on a teaspoon, dispensing with the toast as a vehicle...).

The recipe I use is simply an adaptation of Nigella Lawson's Lime Curd (in How to be a Domestic Goddess), and makes 350ml, or one largish jar.

Lemon Curd

75g unsalted butter - I use salted, I think it tastes nicer, but I'm a big fan of the salty/sweet combo
3 large eggs
75g caster sugar
125ml lemon juice

Melt the butter in a heavy-based saucepan, add all the other ingredients and whisk to a custard over a gentle heat.  Let cool before filling a sterilised jar (or a cake!) with it.  Keep in the fridge.

And that's all there is to it.  Nigella also suggests adding the zest, but personally I don't like my curd to have 'bits' in it.  But if you do, then go ahead.  Just don't expect me to eat it!

I feel like I need to make tons of this stuff as I keep seeing recipes in which to use it.  My lovely friend Anna keeps tantalising me with lemony recipes such as this Lemon Curd Cheesecake, and Little Lemon Puddings.  I'm salivating just thinking about these!

My new Brunei-blog-friend Maya of the fabulous Foodiva's Kitchen mentioned that you could also make curd with other fruits, namely mango...  I have made cranberry curd in the past (Maya would adore it, it's so pink!) but I had never thought of using other fruits.  As mangos are in season right now in Brunei I may have to look into this, in which case I'd guess you just use fruit puree instead of juice.  What a delicious thought!

Do check out Maya's beautiful blog.  Her food always looks like a work of art, not to mention tasting incredible I'm sure.  This post is on my mind at the moment...  you'll see what I mean about her love of pink!  I'm definitely thinking of dusting off my ice-cream maker and taking the plunge.

A Lemony Day

I love lemons and always like to have some in the house.  However, I have had a bargain-bag of TEN lemons in the fridge for the last week and not got round to using them...  With a bonus Public Holiday yesterday (for Israk Mikraj don't you know?!) in the middle of the last week of term, I thought it was a perfect opportunity to get cooking.

Whilst still in my pyjamas I set about cooking lemon curd.  I hadn't made this for years, and had forgotten just how quick and simple it was.  I love how beautiful it looks; it came out a delicate primrose-yellow.

This recipe used whole eggs, hence the pale colour; to get a richer yellow you'd need to use a recipe that just used yolks; but I thought this was gorgeous - and it tasted wonderful too.

On a roll, I decided to continue the lemony theme and make a lemon cake.  Recently I've become a huge fan of Nigella's Lemon Syrup Loaf Cake (which I don't make in a loaf pan, but as a square tray-bake) but yesterday I wanted to try something a bit different.

After a convoluted saga involving having one-too-few eggs to follow the recipe properly, I ended up adapting the recipe to make just one cake instead of the 2 sandwiched together that it is meant to be.  It looked a little disastrous as it came out of the oven (a large section of meringue collapsed off the side, as you can see).

However, with some careful slicing, and a dollop of lemon curd on the side, it made a very respectable pudding!

The recipe can be found here, on Nigella's website, or in her wonderful 'Feast' book.  As I only had 3 eggs rather than the 4 required I made 3/4 of the recipe amount, and piled it all into 1 tin instead of 2. It therefore took a bit longer to cook than specified, perhaps 10 minutes more than the recipe says, but that required a bit of a juggling act with the oven temperatures to ensure that the meringue didn't over-brown.  It all got a bit complex, and I wasn't taking notes!

However, it's a cake I'd definitely try again... and I don't think that jar of lemon curd is going to last too long either!