Dear June,

Found this recipe in Baking With Julia and have been using it for over a year. Gale Gland uses this for her Not Your Usual Lemon Meringe Pie (it's really different, so keeping watching PBS for her demonstration). Anyway, I tried it out as an alternative to Nicole's recipe (hey, Nicole likes this one, too) since I always manage to end up with scrambled eggs in the curd (not really swell, this). This one comes under the title, If I Can Make Citrus Curd, Anybody Can Make It!

We seem to end up with many empty jam/jelly jars around here, so that's what I've been using (16 oz.) for gifts, and keeping the other 8 oz. aside for us. This keeps in the refrigerator for approx. 3 weeks; otherwise, you're gonna be checking it daily to make sure no "green stuff" rears its ugly self. Otherwise, it's easy, relatively simple (hey, even I can make perfect curd every time).

Note: The Tangerine version was a little bitter, so I increased the sugar by about 2 Tbsps -- tastes great. Another little discovery is that, after not having sufficient lemon juice, I added frozen lemonade concentrate. Talk about a flavor blast! Which leads me to believe that this could possibly be made with frozen juice concentrate if fresh is unavailable. It's worth a try, but I would test-run the recipe using a fairly decent, regular margarine first since, with butter prices higher than an elephant's eye as it were, mistakes can be costly. Also, I used salted butter rather than unsalted. The extra salt tends to smooth out the flavors without losing any of the tartness. And this is TART! It's also has less eggs and less butter, but more juice, hence the tartness.

Anyway, have at it and let us know how you like it!

Not-Your Usual Lemon Curd
Makes 1-1/2 Cups

4 large eggs
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup fresh citrus juice
grated zest of at least 1 full fruit
1/2 stick (2 oz) unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into 8 pieces

1. Choose a saucepan that will hold mixer bowl (or heatproof mixing bowl) in a
double-broiler arrangement. Fill pan with 2 to 3 inches of water; bring to simmer.

2. Put eggs and sugar in mixer fitted with whisk attachment; whip at HIGH speed until very light and fluffy. (Or put in mixing bowl, using hand-held mixer.) Still whisking, add juice and grated zest. Set bowl in saucepan, making sure that bottom of bowl does not touch simmering water, then cook mixture, whisking constantly by hand, until smooth, thick and custardlike. Be patient; this can take a while.

3. Transfer bowl to counter; whisk in butter piece by piece. 4 Scrape curd into another bowl if using as cake filling (so mixer is free), then press plastic wrap against top and then refrigerate until thoroughly chilled and set. Or
whisk curd over ice until chilled.

4. Curd can be made up to a week in advance and kept in an airtight container in frig. Once curd is set, it should not be stirred again.

5. If treating curd as condiment: cool slightly, then spoon curd into clean 24 ounce jar with tight-fitting lid and place into refrigerator immediately. Curd will keep for a month when stored in refrigerator.