Store-bought lemon curd doesn’t even deserve to share the same name as homemade. This from-scratch lemon curd is deliciously tangy, creamy, and sweet. You only need 5 ingredients and it comes together on the stove in 10 minutes! Lemon curd is perfect for scones, crepes, angel food cake, quick breads, pound cake, and so much more.
Let’s talk lemon.
- Are lemon bars your main squeeze?
- Is lemon blueberry cake your favorite dessert?
- Are you head-over-heels for lemon meringue pie?
If your answer is YES to all of the above, you’re going to flip for this creamy, dense, intensely flavorful spread. Homemade lemon curd is 1 million times tastier than store-bought, which is filled with ingredients we can’t pronounce and has likely been sitting on the shelf for too long. Spread the blissful homemade version on scones, biscuits, homemade English muffins, and so much more. This is the recipe you never realized you needed!
What Is Lemon Curd?
Lemon curd is a very rich dessert topping or spread. It’s buttery and sweet with intense tart lemon flavor—like a creamy lemon version of jam. Lemon curd is made from simple ingredients and comes together quickly on the stove. Lemon lovers, this is your jam.
Get it? Get it? 🙂
How to Make Lemon Curd
Here’s how we make DIY lemon curd. The full recipe and instructions are below.
You need 5 ingredients for lemon curd recipe: egg yolks, fresh lemons, sugar, salt, and butter. Each ingredient serves a critical purpose for thickening and flavoring. The egg yolks thicken the curd, just as they do in creme brûlée, pastry cream, or butterscotch pudding. Use real lemons; you need both the zest and juice. The sugar supplies sweetness and structure, while the salt balances out the flavor. Add the butter after the curd finishes on the stove. Butter makes it super creamy.
Make lemon curd on the stove. Make sure you are constantly whisking as the mixture thickens—we’re talking about 10 minutes of whisking. The good news? That’s the only step in this recipe: whisking!
Use a Double Boiler
I strongly recommend cooking the lemon curd in a double boiler because mixing these ingredients over direct heat quickly leads to burning. Don’t fret! If you don’t have a double boiler, craft a makeshift double boiler by placing a heatproof glass bowl on top of a larger pot. (You can see my DIY double boiler in my brownie baked Alaska post!) Make sure the bottom of the top pot or bowl does not touch the simmering water. It’s worth repeating: lemon curd should never be cooked on direct heat.
Why Does My Lemon Curd Taste Metallic?
Lemon curd may have a metallic aftertaste if you cook it in a metal double boiler. It’s a result of the eggs and lemon reacting with the pan, but is easily avoidable! Use a non-metal double boiler (this one has a porcelain insert) or the glass bowl option I mention above (but make sure it’s heatproof glass, like Pyrex). While you’re at it, use a silicone whisk too!
FAQ: Can I Make This With Other Citrus Fruits?
Absolutely! You can use this same recipe for lemon curd and swap the lemons for limes, grapefruits, or oranges. You can even use pineapple juice, just like we do for the layers of pineapple curd filling in this pineapple coconut cake!
Uses for Lemon Curd
There are so many ways to enjoy lemon curd. Here are a few suggestions:
- Enjoy on scones, muffins, buttermilk waffles, whole wheat blueberry pancakes, or a Dutch baby pancake
- Use as a filling for crepes, lemon cupcakes, or lemon coconut cake
- Use as a topping for pound cake or pavlova (uses the egg whites!)
- Fill French macarons, choux pastry, or eclairs
- Layer on strawberry shortcake
- Make a lemon berry trifle
- Spread on English muffins, homemade biscuits, toast, croissants
- Mix it with whipped frosting for the fluffiest filling in a citrus cake
- Top your classic cheesecake, lemon cheesecake, or easy cheesecake pie
- Stir in yogurt, cottage cheese, or spoon on ice cream
- Try it on gingerbread waffles (seriously, try this!)
- Use as a filling to add extra flavor to lemon blueberry cupcakes
- Fill your lemon thumbprint cookies
- Fill your favorite cupcake recipe (see my How to Fill Cupcakes post for details on how and for flavor pairing inspiration!)
Lemon Curd
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes (includes cooling)
- Yield: 1 – 1.5 cups
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
You only need 5 simple ingredients for homemade lemon curd—and the recipe comes together on the stove in 10 minutes! If you know how to whisk, you can make this delicious spread.
Ingredients
- 4 large egg yolks (for thicker lemon curd, see Note on eggs)
- 2/3 cup (134g) granulated sugar
- 1 Tablespoon lemon zest (about 1 lemon)
- 1/3 cup (80ml) fresh lemon juice (about 2–3 lemons)
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 6 Tablespoons (85g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature and cut into 6 pieces
Instructions
- Fill the bottom pot of your double boiler with 1–2 inches of water. (Or use the DIY double boiler method listed in the notes.) Place on high heat. Once the water begins to boil, reduce to low heat to keep the water at a simmer.
- Place egg yolks, granulated sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, and salt into the top pot of your double boiler. Using a silicone whisk, whisk until completely blended, then continue to whisk as the curd cooks. Constant whisking prevents the egg yolks from curdling. Whisk and cook until the mixture becomes thick, resembling the texture of hollandaise sauce, about 10 minutes. If you’d like to be precise and use a candy or instant-read thermometer, the temperature will rise to about 170°F (77°C). If curd isn’t thickening, turn up the heat and constantly whisk.
- Remove pan from heat. Whisk the sliced butter into the curd. The butter will melt from the heat of the curd as you whisk. Pour curd into a jar or bowl and place a piece of plastic wrap directly on top so it is touching the top of the curd. (This prevents a skin from forming on top.) The curd will continue to thicken as it cools. Once cool, the plastic wrap can be removed.
- Refrigerate the curd for up to about 10 days.
Notes
- Freezing Instructions: For longer storage, you can freeze the curd up to 3–6 months. Thaw in the refrigerator overnight before enjoying.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Egg Separator | Citrus Juicer | Citrus Zester | Non-Metal Double Boiler | Silicone Whisk
- Thicker Lemon Curd: For thicker lemon curd, replace 2 of the egg yolks with 1 whole egg. This means you will use 2 egg yolks plus 1 whole egg. Keep the rest of the recipe and instructions the same.
- Lemon Juice: Do not use bottled lemon juice. Use fresh-squeezed lemon juice.
- Butter: You can use salted butter instead of unsalted butter. Simply omit 1/8 teaspoon salt in the recipe.
- No Double Boiler? No Problem! If you do not own a double boiler, you can simply place a small heatproof glass bowl over a saucepan of simmering water—you will cook the curd in the top pot/bowl.
- No Straining: I don’t strain the lemon curd. The zest is very tiny and has been cooked, so you can hardly detect its texture. It’s really just there for flavor. However, feel free to run the finished lemon curd through a fine mesh sieve if you want to take the extra step.
Reader Comments and Reviews
MADE IT! With yolks leftover from pavlova. Didn’t have a silicone whisk so alternated between metal whisk and rubber spatula. This is so delicious I could eat it out of the jar (and so pretty). Someone else said the magic starts happening around minute 10 – totally agree. I feel so fancy with my homemade lemon curd! Thank you Sally!!!
Hello! I’m eager to try this recipe! Do you think you can substitute the white sugar with brown sugar?
Thanks!
Hi Ana! I haven’t tried it, but I fear the curd may not set up properly with the extra moisture from the brown sugar.
Hi Sally
I was going to make your angel food cupcakes, can I feel the middle with this lemon curd, or do you have a better ideal for a filling?
Thank you
This is an excellent filling for cupcakes, yes!
Just made this recipe and it turned out beautifully! I wanted a thicker curd, so I used one whole egg and two whites per the suggestion. I stirred continuously in my diy double boiler. I’m so grateful for the clear instructions and tips! Well done!
Excellent results..thank you
I started making my lemon curd in the microwave, but the last couple of times I noticed the butter separating from the rest. Any ideas?
HI Elaine, I recommend following my stovetop method. You need to stir the mixture as it cooks so the butter doesn’t separate.
Delicious and very easy. Used 3 egg yolks, modified double boiler and it thickened to the point that it was hard to pass through my sieve even while still warm. Thank you for sharing.
This is EXACTLY what I was looking for!
I remember this as a topper for gingerbread cake….yum. Thanks for the recipe!
My Meyer lemon tree finally made lemons this year. Lucky me that I tried your recipes for both lemon ricotta cookies AND lemon curd! Both recipes turned out perfectly lemony delicious!
Love them both and can’t wait to share with family and friends this Thanksgiving- and beyond!
Thanks for the great lemon recipes!
Thank you for the suggestion of using some of the egg yokes left over from making Angle Food cake to make Lemon Curd. Worried it was not thick enough but after a time in the refrigerator it was perfect. You make things seem simple.
Oh my goodness!! Thank you Sally! Lemon curds are so hard to find where I am and when I do, it’s sky high expensive. So I decided to make them and they are so so so so so so so good! I was floored and am literally in tears.. I made them with the alteration to the eggs (1 egg + 2 egg yolks) and added a little bit of corn starch to stabilise the curd (per an Aussie aunt’s recommendation given the high humidity we live in) and they turned out beautifully silky smooth and didn’t even need to sieve it. Literally tangy liquid sun-kissed gold. Coincidentally, I made these for your classic cheesecake recipe, which is chilling in the fridge as I write this. Sorry for the long comment but I’m so overjoyed.
Question: I have a lime tree in my backyard and am thinking of making lime curd – would it work with the same ratios? Thanks ever so much!
I made this recipe last night. I doubled it. I’m not sure that I cooked it long enough because it did not thicken up as much as I would have liked. I used the trick of one egg and 2 yokes. I think what I will do is add some xanthum gum to it. I worked it for about 20 minutes, too.
Regardless, it sure does taste good!
My son loves lemon curd! It is very expensive to buy so I thought I would look for a recipe and make it myself. OMG so much better than store bought!
OMG why did I wait so long to make lemon curd?! I’m a pretty experienced cook but for some reason lemon curd kind of intimidated me. I followed the tip for a thicker curd, and used a glass bowl set over a pan-my bowl said “no stove top” but I had no issues. Mine took a bit longer than 10 minutes to thicken, like 15-17, but that may have been because I was hesitant to turn the heat too high. It turned out great!
I made this recipe for some macarons I made and it tasted AMAZING! I recommend to leave it in the fridge for 24 hours in advance so it can thicken up even more. When I was whisking it in the double boiler, I noticed it wasn’t thickening up that much and formed many bubbles so I switched to a rubber spatula. After taking it off the heat, I kept mixing and it thickened right up! If you are going to use this recipe to fill macarons, I recommend making a ring of lemon buttercream on the outside then fill the middle with the curd so it doesn’t run out when you bite into it.
Hello I have a lot of lemons, would like to make this recipe for Christmas gifts, will it keep until Christmas if kept in the fridge ?
You can keep this in the refrigerator for 10 days. For longer storage, you can freeze the curd up to 3-6 months. Thaw in the refrigerator overnight before enjoying.
This stuff is beyond amazing! Love your detailed recipe, it was so easy to make and it’s so good! Put it on top of the no bake cheesecake cups and WOW! What a great combination!
What took me so long to make this! This is hands down the best tasting stuff ever! I made your coconut cake so I had all these yolks. If you are reading the comments to see if this is really as easy as Sally says, yes it is & stop reading & make this. I used a heat proof glass bowl over a pot of water & used a silicone whisk (I don’t have a double boiler) Like she says, at around the 10 min mark the magic happens!! I wish I could rate this as a 10 & now what to bake so I can use this curd!!
Hi Sally! I tried making this today….great flavour, but for some reason it ended up grainy. What did I do wrong?
Hi Chelsea! Grainy lemon curd is a result from over-cooking. Try removing from heat a little earlier. That will help for next time.
Hi Sally,
I’d love to try an orange curd- can I follow the same recipe or would I need to make changes?
Hi Shanta! You can use this exact recipe to make an orange curd. (Or even a grapefruit or lime curd!)
Sally can this be easily doubled?
Sure can!
I made this lemon curd to fill my birthday cake yesterday; while it tasted fabulous, I had a little trouble getting it to thicken. I cooked it for around 20 minutes, increasing the heat after 10 as directed in the recipe, but the curd was still quite thin. I put it in the refrigerator to cool and thicken, and while it did thicken considerably, it was still thinner than the lemon curd pictured in your post. Any ideas? Maybe my stove wasn’t on the right heat, or the water wasn’t at a proper simmer? It still worked though, setting a little more when the cake was refrigerated, and tasted amazing with the lemon cake layers and lemon bavarian cream.
Hi Erin! So sorry you had trouble with the curd thickening right away. I’m glad it could still work as a filling though! One thing I recently noticed– if you replace 2 of the egg yolks with 1 egg, the curd will thicken quicker. So use 2 egg yolks plus 1 whole egg. Keep the rest of the recipe and instructions the same.
This is my first time making lemon curd and it is absolutely fantastic! So creamy and lemony tart, I could eat it with a spoon. I used it to top my pavlova and it was fabulous!
1000 stars!
Sally saves the day again!
Perfect curd!
Made this today to go in your coconut lemon cake and, holy cow, is it delicious! Easy to make, thick and spreadable and I was blown away at its delicious, tart taste. Excellent directions too. It’s going to bring the flavor of the cake to a new level! I’m so pumped for my husband to try it!
I made this yesterday and it’s the best thing.
Hi Sally,
It seems that every time I try a recipe that it turns out just the way you say it will. Your mouthwatering descriptions is what led me to start baking, and I have never considered myself a baker. This lemon curd recipe is no exception. I have been making it and giving it away in little jars all summer. The response has been amazing! When I made your blueberry scones recently I suggested we slather on some curd (I ran out of confectioners sugar for the glaze) and wow what a hit…thanks for introducing me to this new adventure!