Week 7: Lemon Curd

Last week, I found the ideal balance between egg yolks and butter to get a rich, silky texture in the lemon curd. My current reference, Split M, is nice and tart, but I want to experiment with adding a little extra sweetness by changing the sugar to lemon juice ratio. Because a tablespoon of sugar is roughly 12 g,  taking 10 g steps in the sugar and lemon juice amounts should be significant enough.

Table 1: Recipe splits with different sugar to lemon juice ratios. Recipes also include zest and salt.

Split U was far too sweet and slightly thinner than Split M, which is likely because there was more sugar blocking the coagulation and less lemon juice to help denature the egg proteins. Split T was still tart, but its lemon flavor was not as strong. It had lemon in the middle of each bite, but it lacked lemon flavor upfront. Split M was tart and had a strong lemon flavor throughout. It may be a bit too tart to some, but I think it is just the right amount of tartness, especially since lemon curd is often paired with sweet things like sweet tart crusts or cakes. Split M is thus my final recipe, and next week, I will write up the full directions for my master recipe for lemon curd.

Perfection