A delicious homemade lemon curd that is eggless, tangy, creamy and sweet and healthier than store-bought and easier to make than egg-based recipes. Use it on tarts, cookies and my lemon cupcakes.
This tangy homemade lemon curd is made on the stove with just5 ingredients and is the perfect citrus filling for my lemon cupcakes. My lemon curd is different than store-bought and most traditional recipes because it is made without eggs, and is dairy-free and vegan. If you like lemon recipes, you might want to try my lemon bars.
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Why You'll Love Lemon Curd
What is it? Lemon curd is a smooth lemon creamy spread with a strong flavor: tart, tangy and sweet at the same time. The traditional version is made with butter and eggs, lots of them. Mine is made with coconut cream.
How to use it. Lemon curd is used a spread or filling on toasts and bakery goods.
Nutritious gains. My recipe is free of eggs and butter, and uses less sugar than other traditional lemon curd recipes.
Ingredients
Lemon Juice: to provide fresh lemon flavor. Squeezing lemons to get the fresh juice is awesome but if you need to buy bottled just be sure to choose organic lemon juice whose ingredients are only lemon, no additives.
Cornstarch or Arrowroot: I used cornstarch here but arrowroot is healthier.
Turmeric: I added only ⅛ teaspoon for color.
Organic Cane Sugar: I used organic cane sugar which is a bit finer than traditional cane sugar.
Coconut Cream: This is the solid portion from one can of full fat coconut milk. To be sure the solid portion has separated out, it is best to refrigerate the can the night before. One can contains about ¾ cup of solid coconut cream so one can is perfect for this recipe.
See the recipe card at the bottom for full information on ingredients and quantities.
Steps to Make
For more detail, visit the complete and printable recipe at the bottom of this post, but here are general steps.
Step 1. To start, prepare the can of coconut cream. To do that, open the room-temperature or chilled can and scoop out just the solid cream. One can should produce about ¾ cup of solid cream. Add it to a Pyrex glass measuring cup. Put the remaining coconut water in the refrigerate to add to smoothies the next day, or freeze in an ice cube tray to add to smoothies later.
Step 2. Now, set that Pyrex measuring cup full of cream into a pot of boiling water. Don’t let the coconut cream get splashed, but stir until the cream has melted into a liquid. Set aside.
Step 3. Now make the lemon curd. Add the lemon juice, cornstarch, turmeric, salt to a pot with a non-stick surface. Turn heat to medium high and set a timer for 2 minutes.
Step 4. Stir every moment. As the mixture heats, it quickly curdles and turns to a paste. As soon as it turns to a smooth paste, quickly lift the pan off and turn off the heat. This moment was between 1 minute and 2 minutes for me. It will look like this:
Step 5. Now pour in the melted coconut cream and sugar, put the pan back on the stove and turn it back on to medium heat, and begin stirring again. This second stir-heat session will last between 4 and 6 minutes. Basically you want to be sure everything is combined and fairly smooth and glossy. However, it won’t be perfect. It will be lumpy. Once you feel you have gotten it as combined as it’s going to get, take the pan off the stove, and turn off the heat.
Step 6. Let the lemon curd cool in the pan a bit, stirring off and on for about 5 minutes. Then pour it into your blender jar and blend with the air cap off because the mixture is warm and you don’t want steam building so that the blender cap flies off. If your blender jar doesn’t have a lid with a removable cap, perhaps let your curd cool longer before blending. Here it is after I thickened it on the stove, let it cool and just before blending:
Step 7. Blend the curd until is a beautiful glossy yellow. I blended it in my Blendtec for about 30 seconds. That’s it! You’ve made your lemon curd. Here it is right after blending and before chilling.
How to Use Curd
It makes a delicious spread on toast, or filling in baked goods. To use it as a filling for these cupcakes, I poured the curd directly from the blender jar into a piping bag without the tip cut. I let it cool about 30 minutes in the refrigerator, then I cut the tip of the piping bag and filled the cupcakes as you see below:
- Topping for cupcakes, danish, muffins or cakes
- Spread for toasts
- Dip for cookies
- Filling for cookies
- Filling for truffles
- Topping for ice cream
- Topping for yogurt
- Filling for tart or pie crust
- Filling for between pastry layers
Recipe tips
How to pipe. To stiffen the curd more for smooth piping, as you see in my cupcakes, add the curd to a baking bag or ziplock bag and chill for an hour or less in the refrigerator.
How to store. This easy curd is made from heating coconut cream and sugar so it needs to be refrigerated and as such can last about a week. It can be frozen for three months.
FAQS
Traditional curd does contain eggs, but my recipe does not. Instead I use a mix of coconut cream and cornstarch or arrowroot to create the structure that eggs create in a non vegan curd.
Traditional recipes use eggs and butter. My recipe uses coconut cream only. No eggs, no butter.
Both the vegan and traditional versions are safe to eat regarding salmonella. Vegan is safe because all ingredients are plant-based and no ingredient as the potential to have salmonella as is found in raw eggs. Traditional curd is safe because even though it contains eggs, the mixture is cooked, killing off any contaminates.
More Lemon Recipes
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📖 Recipe
Homemade Lemon Curd (egg-free)
Ingredients
- 1 cup lemon juice I used organic lemon juice from a bottle but you can obviously use freshly squeezed
- 5 tablespoon cornstarch or arrowroot
- 1 cup organic cane sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
- ⅛ teaspoon turmeric
- ¾ cup coconut cream the solid portion ONLY from one can of full fat coconut milk
- pinch of salt
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Instructions
Prep
- Remove the solid portion from a chilled can of full fat coconut milk. Reserve the coconut water for future recipes or smoothies.¾ cup coconut cream
- Put the solid cream into a pyrex measuring cup and set that into a pot of boiling water. Stir off and on until the coconut cream has melted into a liquid. Remove from stove and set aside.
Make Lemon Curd
- In a pot, add ingredients except for sugar and cream. Stir on medium heat for about 2 minutes. The mixture should thicken to a shiny paste at almost 2 minutes in. As soon as it does, remove it from heat.1 cup lemon juice, 5 tablespoon cornstarch or arrowroot, ½ teaspoon vanilla, ⅛ teaspoon turmeric, pinch of salt
- Turn off the stove, pour into the pot the melted coconut cream and sugar, put the pot back on the stove at medium heat, and stir until the mixture is thick and creamy. Never stop stirring and stop when you feel you’ve combined all you can. It should look glossy, yellow but bumpy.¾ cup coconut cream, 1 cup organic cane sugar
- At this point, you can either refrigerate your lemon curd and use it to eat. Or, if you want to smooth it out for a prettier texture, pour a slightly cooled mixture into your blender jar. I waited about 5 minutes before blending. Most blenders don’t like hot mixtures and the top can pop off if you blend them so it’s best the mixture not be steaming. Or you can remove the cap from your blender jar cover if it has one to release any steam.
- Once blended - about 30 seconds - pour the beautiful glossy lemon curd into a storage jar and set to cool for an hour or so in the fridge.
To Pipe Lemon Curd
- To be sure the lemon curd is pipable for, say, onto cupcakes. Pour the blended mixture directly into a piping bag that has no tip and that has not been cut at the tip yet. Set that bag upright in a tall drinking glass in the refrigerator. To get the pipable structure you see in my healthy lemon cupcakes, I chilled my curd like that for about 1 hour before piping.
- To make my lemon cupcakes with a hat as I did, simply cut a cone out of the top of the cupcake, cut the triangular bottom off the lid, fill the cupcake with curd and swirl it above to cupcake, then set the cap on top.
- I sprinkled my cupcakes with lemon zest and powdered sugar. I store them refrigerated uncovered for about 2 days before they must be eaten.
Sarah
Heya! What amount of agar agar do you use?
Dee Dine
I noted in the post that agar agar is only an option if you want the curd to be stiffer. Cornstarch and arrowroot actually made it quite sturdy, but if you have agar agar on hand and want to use it, try adding 1/2 tsp at minimum. Let me know how they turn out!