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At some point in my early life I fell in love with lemon desserts. I’m not sure when it happened, which dessert it was, where I was… I’ve always loved lemon desserts. Lemon curd straight up, or served on anything, lemon bars, lemon pound cake, lemon icing, lemon cake, lemon with blueberries, lemon bundtinis. I even cook with lemons! In chicken, fish, dressings… you get the idea.

The other day I needed a quick little something to help me say “Thank You” and show my appreciation. I had heard through the grapevine that they enjoyed lemon curd as much as I do, so I decided to whip some up since it’d been a while. I used this recipe as a guidepost. I added a little twine and a quick “Thank You” stamp on some cute paper. That evening, after Chris came home, we put the kids in the car and drove out for our little delivery. Nothing like a drive to get the kids to sleep, get a Thank You out, and have a little one on one quiet time to chat and connect – everyone wins!

P.S. This takes 5-10 minutes to cook!

This is how I “strain” it after it’s cooked, in case you were wondering! *See recipe below

: This is how you want the curd to coat the wooden spoon, and you’ll know it’s done

INGREDIENTS:

3 large eggs

¾ cup granulated sugar

1 tablespoon lemon zest

½ cup fresh squeezed lemon juice (about 4 lemons)

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

INSTRUCTIONS:

I used a double boiler, but you can improvise by putting a heatproof bowl over a pan of water. Cook the eggs, sugar, and lemon zest and juice, by whisking it until it becomes thick (like in the above photo, where the curd coats the wooden spoon). This should take no more than 10 minutes, be sure the water is hot hot hot – boiling even!
Remove from heat and strain the curd (as seen in the picture above). Add the butter, cut into pieces, and whisk until it’s melted and mixed in.
Cover, by placing saran wrap right on top of the curd, and refrigerate for 4-6 hours.
Enjoy! Especially, on pound cake with a cup of tea 😉

Cheers!

Here’s the deal: I thought I had a great “banana bread” recipe. I thought I had that one figured out. But no. No, I didn’t. Until tonight that is. Tonight, my husband devoured this within minutes of its debut. Thereby demolishing any need to cook dinner. So, I popped open a bottle of this William Hill Chardonnay and drank it with banana bread. Banana bread and Chardonnay? Strange. Very strange. But so good.

I took this recipe from Home Baked Comfort by Kim Laidlaw for Williams Sonoma and made my own pecan and chocolate chip additions… check it out.

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups of all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp grated nutmeg

3 ripe, large bananas, smashed

2 large eggs (room temperature)

1 cup of firmly packed dark brown sugar

1/4 cup sour cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 tbsp of unsalted, melted butter

1/2 cup of chopped pecans

1/4 cup of milk chocolate chips

INSTRUCTIONS:

Heat oven to 350. Butter and very lightly flour two 9×5 loaf pans.
In a large-ish bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
In a mixer (or large bowl) mix together the bananas, eggs, brown sugar, sour cream, vanilla and melted butter.
Slowly add the dry ingredients to the mixer or bowl with the wet ingredients.
Stir in the chopped pecans and chocolate chips.
Divide the batter between the two buttered and floured loaf pans.
Bake about 35 minutes, give our take a few minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the loaf comes out clean.
Let cool, then proceed to devour.

Agustina's Kitchen

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Lemon Curd For the Win

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