Lemon Curd

Okay, I'm still working on that backlog of egg yolks that I have stashed in my freezer. Since my cake turned out so well, I decided to be brave and try again with lemon curd. I've made lemon curd before but, it was several years ago. I made a sponge cake and spread the lemon curd on it and rolled it up. It was mighty tasty.


I'm using Alton Brown's recipe because you know, he's Alton and I have a thing for science loving guys who cook well and wear glasses. *sighs*

I am most definitely not a photographer so please bear with me! Well, first we need some nekkid lemons.


Here's their clothes.



Alton says we need to juice those nekkid lemons and if we have less than 1/3 of a cup, to add water until we have 1/3 of a cup of joos.



This is all joos so I poured off the excess and put it in the refrigerator for later use.

Partially frozen egg yolks, please meet your dance partner for this evening, sugar! Those egg yolks look like mighty sad don't they? I actually wasn't supposed to have them on the stove yet so I removed the bowl and whisked them till they were smooth, (well smoother, since they had been frozen and all that jazz) and added in the zest and joos.



Then I put the bowl back on top of my pan of boiling water and whisked until everything lightened up and was thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Then I stirred in the pats of butter, poured it into a container, topped it with some cling wrap, and let it hang out in the fridge for a bit.



A couple of hours later I went in there and peeked at it. The specks are the zest. Remember these yolks were frozen so they don't blend as nicely as fresh.



Mr. Hairball comes home a couple of hours later and I tell him I made lemon curd. He looks puzzled and asks if he likes that.(Yes, that really does happen. The first time he asked me that I thought I had wandered onto the set of some cheesy sitcom.) I pull it out of the refrigerator and spoon out a small bit for him to try. He says it is good and we have dinner. Later, I ask him if he wants some of the leftover butter cake and his eyes light up as he gets an idea. He asks me to cut him off a piece of cake and split it in the middle and put down a layer of lemon curd.



It broke a little during my machinations. Sorry about that.

My great-uncle

I had a great-uncle who was born on this day. He was quite the character. When I would go to visit him and my great-aunt, he would sing to me every morning at the breakfast table. Some of his songs were quite lovely and some of them, well..., um..., lets just say that they not very politically correct!

He believed that everyone in his house should be out of bed by 10am sharp. If not, then you were subjected to "The Right Guard Treatment". That meant he came into your bedroom and would spray your bare skin with the aerosol can version of Right Guard. Man, that stuff was cold! If that didn't work then he would come back with a tray of ice cubes and throw the ice cubes in the bed.

He also liked to go through the contents of the vacuum cleaner bag after my great-aunt had done the vacuuming. He said it was to make sure that nothing had accidentally been vacuumed up by mistake. He would then sort the dirt into piles and told me that each pile belonged to a person who was staying there at that time. For some reason he liked to make my pile bigger than all the other piles. *grins*

When Mama Hairball learning to cook, she had trouble making gravy and would always get it too thick. My great-uncle told her not to worry, they'd just slice it up and make sandwiches out of it for lunch!

Rest in peace, great-uncle. Thanks for all the laughter you brought to our lives over the years. Thanks for playing cards with us, letting us kids "build stuff" out in your workroom, and for keeping us calm and entertained when we had to get in the storm cellar during tornado season. We still miss you and talk about all the crazy stunts you pulled on us over the years.