5 Minute Lemon Curd Recipe 00:47

Found an amazing recipe for a tasty, tart, lemon curd, that takes no longer than 5 minutes in the microwave. Yep. Not a typo. 5 minutes. Great for those times when you only want a small amount, and don't feel like constantly stirring a large pot on the stove for an hour.

You can make as much or as little as you like, and you're not restricted to lemon! So far, I've made lime, orange and raspberry curds. Just substitute the lemon juice for another citrus juice, or fruit puree.

Ingredients: (makes about 200g)

• Juice from 1 lemon (approx 50g)
• 66g eggs, beaten, at room temperature
• 60g caster sugar
• 40g unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1.6g gold leaf gelatine, soaked and drained.

Method:

  

Combine butter, lemon juice, eggs
and caster sugar.

1. Combine the beaten eggs, sugar, lemon juice and butter in a microwave-safe bowl. Whisk by hand to combine ingredients.
2. Bloom the gelatine in cold water, and drain well. Leave in fridge.
3. Heat the mixture in the microwave on high at 20 second bursts, whisking well after each burst. Gradually, the mixture will thicken, and start to bubble.

Mixture starting to thicken and bubble.

Once the mixture is bubbling and thick (should take no longer than 5 minutes), add the bloomed gelatine and stir to combine. Leave to cool to room temperature, to form a more solid consistency.

Feel free to experiment with different flavours! Here, I made lemon, orange and raspberry curds respectively. For the raspberry, I puree'd frozen raspberries (once thawed), and pressed this through a sieve to remove lumps. Then I just substituted the lemon juice for 50g of raspberry puree. Raspberries tend to go a pale purple colour rather than red when cooked, so add a small amount of red food colouring if you want a brighter colour.

Lemon, Orange and Raspberry Curd

If the curd is still too runny after refrigeration, you can always add a bit more gelatine. Heat the mixture up again in the microwave first, then add bloomed gelatine and stir to dissolve. If the mixture is not warm enough when the gelatine is added, you'll get lumps.

Raspberry and Dark Chocolate Mousse 20:15

So I was asked to do a 50th birthday cake, and to my delight, was given no budget, and no restrictions on flavour, size or design. So I decided to experiment a little on my own flavours, rather than following recipes. The end result was this.

Dark Chocolate  and Raspberry Mousse Cake, sprayed with white chocolate.

Fresh Raspberries, glazed with raspberry jam.

Decorated with raspberries, freeze-dried strawberries,

dots of green tea ganache and lemon curd, and white

chocolate panels sprinkled with freeze-dried strawberries.

The cake consists of a chocolate shortbread base (as found in Darren Purchese's Mandarin and Salted Caramel Cake), a raspberry puree baked cream, and then chocolate and raspberry ganache. I placed small chunks of raspberry on top of the ganache, and then encased this insert in 70% Dark Chocolate mousse. 

After freezing the mousse+insert overnight, I removed it from the pastry ring and left it to thaw in the fridge for an hour. I had left-over white chocolate spray from my Green Tea and Pistachio cake, but this time I whitened it using titanium dioxide. After the cake was thawed, I heated the chocolate spray to 35-40C, placed it into my paint spray gun, and went to town. Then, it was just a matter of flicking red coloured chocolate spray over the cake, and placing the raspberries, freeze dried strawberries, lemon curd and green tea ganache around the cake. I then melted white chocolate, spread it onto an acetate sheet, and sprinkled over crushed freeze-dried strawberries before it set. Before the chocolate completely set, I scored out some panels, which I placed on the sides of the cake.

I love freeze dried fruit! The strawberries still taste like strawberries, but they're incredibly crunchy! You can find them in some health-food shops. I used an organic brand called absolutefruits. For 20gm they were $3.50, but a little goes a long way.

Pistachio, Lemon and Green Tea 23:11

I wanted to try another recipe from Darren Purchese's Sweet Studio book, so I decided on his Pistachio, Lemon and Green Tea. It was also a good excuse to try out my new chocolate spray gun. It consists of a pistachio and semolina sponge base, lemon curd, green tea dacquoise, pistachio pastry cream, and white chocolate mousse. This was then sprayed with white chocolate, and decorated with green tea and pistachio macarons, lemon curd, coloured chocolate drizzle and cacao nibs.

Although it was fun and relatively simple cake to make, I would make a few changes in the ratios of each layer. The pistachio tasted great, but it overpowered the small amount of lemon curd and green tea. I would make the green tea layer much thicker, and possibly add in an extra layer of plain vanilla sponge to break it up. This would result in less white chocolate mousse, which was a bit too thick on the top. Oh well..must practice!

From the bottom: Pistachio and semolina sponge, lemon curd,
 green tea dacquoise, pistachio pastry cream, white chocolate mousse.