Lemon Curd Recipe

If you’ve been reading SipChompChew for a while you would have seen my Valentines Hearts on Soup tutorial. I’ve been wanting to make these tarts for some time now and last Wednesday night was the perfect opportunity. I had some girlfriends over for dinner and and a wedding photo presentation and I thought it would be really cute to make some wedding themed desserts. Using the same technique as the soup I filled some sweet pastry cases with lemon curd and then used raspberry curd to make the hearts. I do love lemon curd, I have a dirty little habit of eating it straight from the jar with a spoon!

Here’s my recipe for lemon curd. This should keep for a couple of weeks. I’ve read that you can freeze it but I’ve never had a need to as this recipe makes enough to fill a half liter kilner jar which is easily used up in two weeks for us. You can really get creative with lemon curd, it can top pancakes, pies, toast, scones, fill Madeleines and cakes. Add to granola or yogurt or ice cream, I could go on and on!

 

 

You will need

• 4 Lemons, Zest and juice
• 200g Caster Sugar
• 100g Unsalted butter, cubed
• One egg yolk plus three whole eggs, beaten
• 500ml jar, sterilised

First you need the lemons to be warm. You get more juice out of warm lemons, a 20 second blast in the microwave should do the trick. Add all the ingredients except the eggs to a saucepan and stir on a low heat until the butter is melted. Now add the eggs. You’ll need to continuously stir else you’ll end up with a strange lemon scrambled egg mixture that resembles something out of The BFG if it’s just left to sit! After about 5 minutes, the curd should coat the back of a spoon, turn off the heat and pour through a fine sieve or cheese cloth. It won’t be the thickness that curds are known for until it’s set so allow to cool for a while before transferring it to your prepared jar, store in the fridge once cool.

I’ll post my recipe for raspberry curd soon so you can make those oh so cute heart shapes!

 

 

As I’m clearly in a hearts and flowers kind of mood, I thought I’d share one of our wedding photos with you. We chose a reportage style of photography and David Jones completely nailed it – he really captured so many special moments. Here’s one of my many favourite pictures. As you can see we had perfect weather, not an April Shower in sight!

Scrummy Sweetcorn Farfalle

It has been far too long since my last post but with a wedding to plan and a certain dress to fit into, I’ve been super busy attending 5 classes a week  at Singapore Dance Arts on top of yoga and my daily walks with Bryan, my gorgeous little Pug. That doesn’t mean I haven’t missed Sip Chomp Chew and I’ve been hustling up some new recipes, perfecting some old ones and dreaming of eating them all once I’m the other side of our upcoming nuptials!

A couple of weeks ago we had some friends over for a BBQ, I can never seem to get the amount of food right when cooking for more than just the two of us and we end up with heaps of left overs so I came up with this yummy pasta dish to use up the last of the corn on the cob. I’ve never eaten sweetcorn like this before but I will definitely be doing it again, I found the crunch when eating a chunk of kernels  awfully satisfying.

 

The measurements in this recipe are in cups as I keep forgetting to buy new batteries for my kitchen scales but as soon as I do, I’ll add the alternative weights on there for you!

What you’ll need for one serving…

• 1 Half cob of corn, you can use canned corn but the texture of this is so much nicer, if you use a can you will need half a cup
• 1 Tbsp Fresh Basil, chopped
• 1/2 Tsp Lemon zest
• 1 Tsp Lemon juice
• 1/2 Tsp Fresh chopped green chilli
• 1 Tbsp Olive oil
• Salt and Pepper
• A handful of rocket
• 1/2 clove garilc, crushed
• 1 cup of Farfalle
• Fresh grated parmesan to serve

 

Heat the grill or a grill pan and cook the corn until you have gold spots. Leave to the side until cool enough to handle. Get the Farfalle boiling whilst you prepare the rest of the ingredients. Mix together all the other ingredients before taking a sharp knife, slicing off the corn kernels so you have nice big chunks. When the pasta is cooked, add with the corn to the rest of the ingredients, top with parmesan and serve.

I’m not too sure when my next post will be,  with less than a month to the big day I think I have most of the details covered but little things do keep popping up occasionally. Planning a wedding from the other the side of the world has certainly been a challenge at times and I’ve learned not to be so much of a control freak over all the details! We’ve booked some really fantastic suppliers and I can’t wait to see everything coming together on the day!