Egg-free Vegan Lemon Curd - by Tat Effby
As perfect for a cake filling as it is spread on toast. These quantities make enough to fill a 300ml Bonne Maman jam jar or for two layers of filling in a 7 inch cake.
100g lemon juice - from approximately 2 & 1/2 unwaxed lemons
18g cornflour / corn starch
110g white sugar
100 water
yellow colouring - no it’s not optional ;)
75g cold coconut oil / unsalted vegan butter / unsalted dairy butter
• Zest the lemons into a heavy bottomed pan.
• Add the cornflour, sugar and enough of the lemon juice to mix everything to a smooth, lump-free paste.
• Stir in the rest of the lemon juice and the water and put the pan on a medium heat.
• Keep the liquid moving with a spatula so as it thickens lumps don’t form. When it has thickened keep it on a low simmer (gentle bubbles slowly puttering up through the curd) for about a minute to cook out any chalkiness from the cornflour.
• Remove from the heat and stir in your choice of fat.
• If I’m making this plant-based, my preference is for coconut oil. I prefer the creaminess it brings without the aftertaste I find some vegan butters have. That said both dairy butter and vegan butter emulsify much easier with the liquid in the curd than coconut oil. With coconut oil you may find a balloon whisk is best to fully incorporate it into the curd, whereas either butter can just be stirred in.
• If you’re using this as a cake filling, pour it into a piping bag while it’s warm and leave it to cool to 20ºc / room temperature at which point it will be a perfect consistency to pipe.
• If you’re not using the curd straight away in a cake and want to store it in the fridge, and you have have an immersion / stick blender / blender, I recommend leaving the curd to cool to 20ºc / room temperature and then blending it until it goes slightly pale. This helps to stop the fat separating from the liquids when it’s chilled in the fridge. If you’ve used vegan or dairy butter this is less likely to happen but with coconut oil it is more noticeable. Give the set curd a quick whizz with the blender though and whatever you’ve used you’ll get a lovely smooth curd when chilled.
Tat x
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