I recently purchased two dozen beautiful lemon’s to make lemon curd for a wedding cake.  And I had a little helper to help me zest and juice them all.  In fact my daughter juiced all the lemons by herself, she thought it was fun.  We ended up getting enough juice for about 18 cups of lemon curd.  I’m so proud, she is following in my footsteps. 

She’s so beautiful, even more bright and sunny than the lemons!  It’s so nice that she’s finding fun in the kitchen

Your daughter is absolutely lovely, Liza!  And she likes to zest lemons, too?  Now, that’s what I call handy!!!!  Congratulations on all counts!

Yes, she’s quite a help in the kitchen.  The opposite to what my teenage son is.  He would just rather show up when the food is ready on the table.    But I have managed to train him to put his dirty dishes in the dishwasher when he is done.  Now, if I could only get him to pick his laundry up off the floor in his bedroom….  Wishful thinking?

Great picture!  (Can I borrow her the next time I make lemon curd?)

Sure Bill!! I’d love to have an excuse to go to New York for a trip.

Thanks.  Rose once promised me Woody for my birthday…he never showed up

This is excellent, she enjoys working with you.

I had a lemon tree in the backyard of my winter rental in Scottsdale Arizona last year and the things are just lining the neighborhood streets.

Not being from such a summery climate I found it flummoxing that they hung to their death (on the trees I didn’t have time to pick). Where are the enterprising kids with lemonade stands these days? Managing their social network profiles?

Your daughter certainly seems to see more value in this fruit than the people in Scottsdale, although strangely enough there were almost always people buying lemons at Whole Foods and Trader Joes - sprayed ones too!

As for me, I made as many lemon tarts, bars, cakes (with poppyseed and another with lavender), ‘ade (with maple syrup), salad dressings, chicken picatta and darn it if I didn’t forget to make curd!

I have a friend down there with Meyer lemons now, so I’ll have to use those when I do make curd. Damn that stuff is ethereal - add with fresh brioche or even sourdough…otherwordly!

I’m also going to try a desert that layers tuiles lemon cream and raspberries when some good looking organic raspberries catch my eye. Got the idea from a trifle I saw in Italy.

Does everyone have a brand of bought lemon curd that’s their stand by for times when they can’t or don’t want to make their own? An organic one.

I used to like Wilkins and Sons but I stopped buying anything not organic.

Your daughter is adorable! How cool she shares your interests.  That’s wonderful!

Well here are the fruits of my labour.  18 cups of homemade lemon curd, cooling down and then going into the freezer for the wedding cake I am doing in September. 

72 egg yolks,  actually it was about 78 egg yolks because 4 egg yolks weigh less than 74 grams ( I was short 4 grams, but I didn’t think it would make a whole lot of difference considering the total weight
              in grams was 1332 grams )

Just over 5 pounds of sugar

6.75 cups of lemon juice

2.25 pounds of butter
36 teaspoons ( 72 grams of lemon zest )

I measured everything in grams to be more exact. I ended up making 3 batches of lemon curd in a row ( 6 cups per batch ) 

I have a mountain of egg whites in my fridge right now waiting to be frozen.  I don’t know what I am going to do with all of it.  I still have lots of frozen eggs whites in my freezer still and I used some of that stock to make the white chocolate mouselline buttercream for the wedding cake.

The lighting was not that great in my kitchen when I took this picture because the lemon curd is actually a vibrant bright yellow,  not the dull yellow that is shown in the picture.

It looks great, Liza.  So amazing to hear of the magnitude of that wedding cake project, enjoying following your progress.  I’m so lookng forward to seeing the end result