Recipes

This recipe for Bramley lemon curd is chosen from River Cottage Preserves by Pam Corbin. She writes "When I made preserves for a living, I tried all kinds of curds, from orange to passion fruit, but none of them was ever as popular as the good old-fashioned lemon variety. I didn't think I could improve in it until recently, when I came across an old recipe for an appley lemon curd. I tried it out and I now prefer it even to a classic straight lemon curd - it's like eating apples and custard: softly tangy and quite quite delicious."

Makes 5 x 225g jars

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

Method

Put the chopped apples into a pan with 100m water and the lemon zest. Cook gently until soft and fluffy, then either beat to a puree with a wooden spoon or rub thorugh a nylon sieve.

Put the butter, sugar, lemon juice and apple puree into a double boiler or heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. As soon as the butter has melted and the mixture is hot and glossy, pour in the eggs through a sieve and whisk with a balloon whisk. If the fruit puree is too hot when the beaten egg is added, the egg will 'split'. One way to guard against this is to check the temperature of the puree with a sugar thermometer - it should be no higher than 55-60C when the egg is added. If your 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; the temperature should reach 82-84C on a sugar thermometer. Immediately pour into warm, sterilised jars and seal. Use within 4 weeks. Once opened, keep in the fridge.

Variations
To make gooseberry curd, replace the apples with gooseberries. If you'd like to go for a traditional pure lemon curd, simply leave out the apples, increase the lemon juice to 200ml and add the grated zest of 2-3 lemons.