Lemon Custard without the zest?

[KerrynN]

Hi all,

DH just made lemon custard from EDC and it was yummy but it had little bits of lemon zest in. He is keen to know if he could replace the zest with the juice of the lemon and reduce the milk amount accordingly. Can anyone see any problems with this?

Thanks,
Kerryn

[Meagan]

You can zest your lemon with a fine zester like a microplane and mill with the sugar as per the recipe. This eliminates the texture of the lemon. Also if you mill the sugar rind and flour together it will help to break it down more too.

[Intrepidtrier]

HI Kerryn  I just had the same problem so all I did was put the custard through a sieve when you take it out of the bowl of the tmx. That catches all the zest and makes for a lovely custard.

[judydawn]

Kerryn, you can try adding some juice to your custard but the zest is much more flavoursome.  I have a zester, well worth the expense - great for parmesan cheese topping on pasta etc as well.

[tarosuma]

You can zest your lemon with a fine zester like a microplane and mill with the sugar as per the recipe. This eliminates the texture of the lemon. Also if you mill the sugar rind and flour together it will help to break it down more too.

I second this suggestion from Meagan - it works well to grind the zest up with the flour as well as the sugar.  Also make sure that your zest is dry when it goes in.

[JaneeZee]

Yes, thirded!!  We are taught to zest the lemon as soon as we arrive at a demo so the zest has some time to dry out a bit.  I only ever use cornflour (real cornflour not wheaten cornflour) for custard & putting that in with the sugar & zest & blitzing it all together makes it much finer.

As a matter of course these days even if I'm only using the juice of a lemon I zest them & keep that in a bag in the freezer....& vice versus with the juice.

[KerrynN]

I think the he did follow the recipe but the zest would have been wet and he may not have milled it long enough. All good ideas for next time.

As a matter of course these days even if I'm only using the juice of a lemon I zest them & keep that in a bag in the freezer....& vice versus with the juice.

This is a great idea! I will make sure to do this next time too.