An easy, lovely lemon curd (and an attempt at other citrus curds)

There are a few things that I am still scared to make in the kitchen.

• I am scared to make croissants.  I think I am afraid that I may make a flat, greasy lump of dough.

• I have never tried making homemade gyoza skins.  I am sure to lose Asian points for this one, but I was never taught and I am nervous to try.

• I love meatloaf, but I never ate much growing up, so it is still a mystery to me.  I am hesitant.

I'm sometimes a timid cook.

Lemon curd used to be on that list.

'Cause who makes lemon curd?   It seemed a little too fancy and a little too time intensive for me.

All sorts of lovely citrus for curd!

But then my sister, Dimples, introduced a cake with a frosting that required lemon curd.  We'll talk about the cake later, but I wanted to tell you about how I overcame my fear of making lemon curd.

You see, this lemon curd has 5 ingredients.

There's some grating and squeezing involved.

Lemon, lime, and  orange zest and freshly squeezed juice

The cool thing about this lemon curd is that it doesn't require a stove top. You make this lemon curd in the microwave.

A microwave?  Lemon curd in that new fangled contraption?!?

Yeah, you can make this curd in a microwave!

The mixture starts out kind of runny...

All the ingredients whisked together.

...and as you microwave it, the mixture gets thicker...

The curd starting to firm up.

...until it coats the back of a spoon nicely.

Creamy and thick!

The lemon curd is divine.  The lime curd was okay. The orange curd was a disaster!

The lemon and lime curds ended up in jars, but the orange curd got tossed!

I'm going to tweak the lime curd recipe, and I'm on the hunt for a totally new recipe for orange curd, but for now, you should try this lemon curd recipe.

It's a cinch!

And if anyone has an awesome lime or orange curd recipe they want to share, please email me!  I need help!


Lemon Curd

(Adapted from this recipe from Allrecipes and this recipe from Gourmet)

Ingredients:
1/2 c fresh lemon juice
Lemon zest from 3 lemons
1/2 c granulated sugar
3 large eggs
6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted


Directions:
In a microwave-safe bowl, whisk sugar and eggs until smooth.  Stir in lemon juice, zest and butter.

Cook in the microwave at one-minute intervals, stirring after each minute until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a metal spoon.

Remove from the microwave and transfer to another bowl and cover the surface with plastic wrap; chill until cold or at least for one hour.