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Lemon Butter
Mrs. D. S. Munger.
Beat six eggs, one-fourth pound butter, one pound sugar, the rind and juice of three lemons; mix together and set in a pan of hot water to cook. Very nice for tarts, or to eat with bread.
This is lemon curd under its older American name, and the method is sound: a double boiler and constant attention. Everything hinges on keeping the eggs below the point where they scramble.
- The hinge: gentle heat, constant stirring"Set in a pan of hot water" means cooking in or over hot water, a bain-marie or double boiler, with the water at a bare simmer rather than a boil. Stir without stopping and pull it off at about 170F, when it coats a spoon; much past 180F the eggs curdle.
- Weights in modern termsA quarter pound of butter is one stick (4 oz, 113 g). One pound of granulated sugar is about 2¼ cups. Six large eggs are roughly 300 g out of the shell.
- Sugar levelA pound of sugar to three lemons is sweet by current taste. Many cooks today use half to two-thirds that amount, though the sugar also thickens the curd and helps protect the eggs from setting too fast, so cutting it will give a looser, sharper result.
- The rindZest only the yellow, not the white pith, and rub the zest into the sugar before adding the eggs. That releases the oils and gives far more lemon flavor than zest stirred in at the end.
- Strain and coolThe period text says nothing about straining, but pouring the finished curd through a fine sieve removes any set egg and the strips of rind, leaving it glossy. Press a piece of plastic wrap onto the surface as it cools if you dislike a skin.
- Yield and keepingExpect a generous pint and a half, enough to fill two 8-inch tart shells or several jars. It is an egg-and-butter preserve, not a shelf-stable one: refrigerate and use within two weeks, or freeze.
- Uses"Very nice for tarts" means small pastry cases baked blind and filled once the curd is cold. It also works as a cake filling, folded into whipped cream, or spread on toast as the recipe suggests.
"Lemon butter" was one of several names in circulation in nineteenth-century America for what English cooks called lemon curd or lemon cheese, the terms "cheese" and "butter" having been borrowed by fruit preserves from the dairy products by analogy of texture, as in damson cheese and apple butter. Fruit curds are generally traced to English kitchens of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, where they were served with bread and butter at tea; by the time The Home Cook Book was compiled in Chicago in 1874 from contributions by named local women, the recipe had become a staple of the community cookbook. The attribution to Mrs. D. S. Munger is typical of the genre: these books were fundraising projects, and the contributor's name was part of the point.