To Curd or Not To Curd...

Curd??? I can hear many of you shaking your head and thinking of cottage cheese or other variations of dairy products gone bad. Some of you have never heard of it, some of you have never tried it and some of you-like me-are HUGE fans and prefer it immensely to other common spreads for my morning biscuits and afternoon scones. Is there an in-between?

If you google the most basic of curds, lemon curd, you will find a few articles on it, but you will still find far more articles on curds and whey. It is unfortunate that this delectable treat has gone so unnoticed and elicits so little respect from its American public. The best of the articles that I have seen on it is this one, by Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_curd

Please take the brief moment understand the difference and allow me to assist you on your way. Curd is not a custard, a pie filling, a butter or a jam, although in the right circumstances it may be used as a substitute for any of those items. Curd is a sweet, sometimes tart, dessert-like topping and is most frequently associated with an English tea. While I adore it in this capacity, I hate to relegate to only its most common use.

Curd is made up of a combination of fruit juice (concentrated for best flavour), sugar, eggs, cornstarch, and zest or lemon juice-depending heavily upon the type of curd. I almost always end up with six or seven ingredients, again depending upon the type of curd that is chosen. It is NOT egg-based like a custard, nor cream based as a pie filling or pudding, nor is it all juice like a gelatin or sauce. It is a combination of those things and can be far more versatile than either.

It is such a delightful accompaniment that I have found very little that I couldn't do with it. On that note, however I must say that it is not my preference to have it alone as its flavour tends to be quite that intense.

Personally, I have used it in combination with other items to form a pie filling (see Dreamy Strawberry Cream Pie under the recipes label on this blog), I have used it with a box cake mix in place of nearly every other ingredient-save the eggs, I have used it to fill miniature tarts, spread on toast, biscuits, scones and every imaginable pastry, and I continue to come up with other uses for this versatile substance. It blends beautifully with cream or dairy products to make a flavourful whip or layer of a dessert.

The other negative, among its radiating positives, is that its shelf life is a bit more delicate than some of its non-dairy and non-egg based cousins. I have found that it can last approximately six months to a year on a cool, dark pantry shelf so long as it is properly processed and sealed (as ALL my pantry items are!), and once opened, it is best to use it within a week or two, depending on how cold you keep your refrigerator. Unlike more commercially processed producers of this type of product, I do not add additional preservatives that could negatively affect the flavour, so I don't like to keep it opened in my refrigerator for very long...not that it usually last that long at my house anyway!

In closing, I do hope that my personal notes have brought you closer To Curd than Not To Curd, and it is my hope that you will at least give this tasty treat a try before you toss it aside as just plain 'odd'. It is correct to say that it does not quite fit in to any of our more commonly known categories, but I like to say that is because it is meant to stand out!

Wishing you and your's all the best and the tastiest treats,

Amber Patterson
Head Chef & Chief Curd Taster/Developer
Our Little Secret Sauce