By min | May 5, 2013, 3:14 PM | Vegan Vittles | Comments (2)| Link

Vegan Lemon Curd

Vegan Lemon Curd

Apparently, lemon curd is delicious. Who knew? I generally hate lemon flavored sweet things. I can't stand the cloying sweetness of most lemony treats. Not this lemon curd though. It's just the right amount of sweet and tart.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup lemon juice (fresh-squeezed from Meyer lemons is best, but any lemon will do. bottled if you must, but really?)
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 T cornstarch
• 1/2 cup sugar
• pinch of salt
• 3 T unflavored non-dairy milk (i used Silk creamer because it's richer than milk)
• 1 T butter (we like Earth Balance buttery sticks)

Yield: ~1 cup

In a saucepan, combine the lemon juice, water, and cornstarch, stirring until the cornstarch is dissolved. Add the sugar and salt.

Slowly cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it boils. Let it continue boiling for another minute without stirring.

Take it off the burner and add the milk and butter, mixing until well-combined. Allow to cool completely before using. It's best if allowed to refrigerate for a few hours first.

Now that you've got lemon curd, what are you going to do with it? I made vanilla cupcakes (the recipe can be found here), dug a cone-shaped hole out of the middle, and filled those suckers with enough lemon curd that it pooled a bit on the top (a plastic squeeze bottle, like the ones sub shops use for their sandwich-making condiments, is particularly suited for filling cupcakes with things). Then i made buttercream frosting, substituting lemon juice for the milk and vanilla extract (for a more lemony flavor, use a little lemon extract).

I thought they turned out pretty well, although next time i'm making a bigger hole so i can stuff even more curd into each cake.

The fudge bars were made using the Double-Crust Fudge Bars recipe from Chloe Coscarelli's book Chloe's Vegan Desserts. You make some shortbread dough (2 cups flour, 1 cup vegan butter, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/2 tsp salt). Line an 8"x8" baking dish so that the parchment paper hangs over the sides (very important if you want to have any hope of extracting this dessert from the dish). Press half of the shortbread dough into the pan, covering the bottom. Melt 2 cups of chocolate chips in 3/4 cup canned coconut milk and 1/4 cup sugar (although i think no sugar would be just as delicious), add 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, and pour all of that on top of the short bread. Then take the remaining shortbread and crumble over the top. Bake for 35 min at 350degF. Allow it to cool completely and refrigerate overnight.

The milk added to the chocolate chips is what makes the chocolate soft enough to bite into without getting a crunch like you would if you just used the chips as is. It's very much like a more solid ganache.

A very rich dessert, but so addictive. I'd like to experiment with it - perhaps a thinner layer of chocolate or some salted chopped almonds on the top instead of the walnuts inside - but i'm busy being ill from eating too damn many of them in one sitting.