Lime Curd

Today and tomorrow I will be working on one project with many individual parts.  Today - before I go to the health conscious Zumba class that is my usual Wednesday routine - I thought I would start the project with the part of the bake which takes the least time and the fewest ingredients, but is the one thing I have never done before.  Today marks the first day I have ever made Lime Curd (or any type of curd for that matter).

Ingredients
225g caster sugar
150g butter (unsalted)
3 limes (juice and zest)
2 eggs (whole)
2 egg yolks (I lucked out here, I cracked open the first egg and it was a double yolker - talk about an egg saver)

Getting out the only pan with a heavy enough bottom that I can whisk in a double boiler over it I poured in enough water to heat it up and then put the large glass bowl (only one I have that is properly heat resistant) over it containing the sugar, butter and limes.

Melting the butter and incorporating the sugar

Once the sugar and butter had melted into the lime juice and zest (an incredible smell), and I had cleverly burned my fingers a couple of times holding onto the bowl (which quickly became boiling hot), I added the eggs (through a sieve).  After a while of whisking (I love this double balloon whisk) it turned a rather lurid yellow

After the eggs had been stirred in (and didn't curdle)

It took a long time, but after a while the mixture started to thicken.  Though most of the recipes say that you can leave the pan and stop stirring I was like a mother with a newborn, hovering over the mixture as it developed a bit of a froth and slowly (incredibly slowly, felt like forever) started to thicken like a custard.

The bubbling, frothing lime curd (not quite done yet)

Like with jam (or so I have been reassured) the mixture thickens more as it cools, but the true test that it is ready to remove from the heat and leave to its own devices is the moment when the curd can coat the back of a spoon and you can draw a stripe down it that doesn't immediately disappear

The spoon covered with evidence that I hadn't screwed up

 

As you can see from the above picture, I actually managed to create the right consistency, with any luck it will thicken enough that when I spoon it into the plain vanilla cupcakes I will make tonight when I get back from Zumba it won't soak right through them and leave me with a soggy mess in a cupcake case.  Time, and the next installment of 'baking for MacMillans' will tell.