Week 35: Creams, Curds & Puddings - Orange Curd

A simple delicately flavored orange curd. Fantastic for adding to biscuits, waffles, pancakes or really anything else you'd use jelly or syrup. This recipe yields roughly a pint of rich custard like orange curd.

To make, you will need the following:

1 orange
1 to 1 1/2 cups sugar (depending on how sweet you prefer your curd)
1 stick (8 tbsp) of butter at room temperature
1/2 c orange juice (fresh or bottled, your choice)
6 large egg yolks
Pinch of Salt (not pictured)

I used a hand held electric mixer for this recipe. It can be done in a stand mixer or even by hand. Just make sure your butter if very soft so it's easier for you to whisk together if doing so by hand.

Zest your orange and add it along with your sugar to a food processor. Pulse till your zest has been finely incorporated into your sugar. You can absolutely choose to use more than one orange worth of zest. It will yield a more strongly flavored orange curd at the end.

Prep your eggs by separating your yolks and whites. Easiest way to do this is by hand. It's a bit messy but doesn't require anything else to get the job done. Note that you can freeze your egg whites for up to a year! Just thaw them and let them come to room temperature for about thirty minutes and use as you would normal egg whites. We only need the yolks for this recipe, be sure to save your whites for future use.

Measure out your orange juice and set that aside too.

Add your softened butter to your sugar/zest mix.

Cream your butter and sugar/zest until creamy. Scrape down your bowl.

After your butter and sugar/zest is creamed, add all of your yolks at once.

Beat or whisk the yolks in until fully incorporated.

Add your orange juice at this time.

Whisk your orange juice in until you no longer see pools of liquid. Scrape down your bowl. Be sure to get the bottom of the bowl where all the creamy butter and sugar likes to hide.

Place your curd mix into a medium sauce pan and cook over low to medium low heat until it reaches 175*F. This should take 10 to 12 minutes. Keep on stirring the entire time. You don't want to give your eggs a chance to scramble or overheat on the bottom of the pot.

If you don't have a thermometer (though you really should) simply cook on medium low for a full 11 minutes and you should be ok. Remember, never stop stirring.

Pull off the heat and check for nappé. Coat the back of your spoon and run your finger down the center. If you get a clean line and no weeping of the liquid, you're good.

At this point you can choose to strain out all of your zest and any potential egg bits that may have scrambled. I have faith that you wont scramble your eggs though. Just go low and slow and never stop mixing.

I strained mine for zest removal as I didn't want little bits of zest in my final product.

Place in vessel of your choice and refrigerate overnight. It will thicken up to a wonderfully creamy consistency.

You can eat this on literally anything you want. I like it on biscuits, waffles or even toast rather than using jelly or syrup.

Try this recipe with any other citrus you'd like! It works great for limes, lemons and grapefruit. Experiment and if you try this recipe or a variant of it, let me know how you like it and choose to use it!