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I’ve used my experience as a professional pastry chef, and a lover of all things citrus, to collect Recipes with Lemon Curd for summer and all year around! They are grouped into categories, so you can find your new favorite lemon curd recipes easily!
Table of Contents
- Why these lemon curd desserts taste better than the rest:
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Homemade Lemon Curd Ingredients
- Chef’s Tips on Lemon Juice & Lemon Zest
- Why is my jar of lemon curd eggy?
- Cakes
- Using Lemon Curd in Cakes:
- Cupcakes
- Using Lemon Curd in Frosting:
- Cookies
- Tarts
- Using Lemon Curd in Tarts:
- Breakfast Pastries
- Ice Cream, Yogurt & Toppings
- Before You Go
Why these lemon curd desserts taste better than the rest:
- The best lemon curd recipe. A silky, easy lemon curd that is refreshingly tart with just a hint of sweetness!
- Created by a seasoned pastry chef. These recipes are all by a pastry chef to ensure professional-quality texture and flavor in every bite.
- Easy categories for easy decision-making. We’ve subdivided our favorite recipes with lemon curd into sections. No guesswork, no fuss, just bright lemon goodness!
- A lemon curd collection to put some pep in your step. There are tangy tarts, creamy cheesecakes, easy cookies—and everything in between!
Frequently Asked Questions
Cooled lemon curd can be stored in a glass mason jar or other airtight container for up to 1 month in the refrigerator or frozen for 3 months.
A custard is a dessert or filling that is thickened with eggs or egg yolks and sometimes a starch like cornstarch. Custards can be creamy and smooth or full of texture like an old-fashioned bread pudding. Some custards are desserts themselves, such as crème brûlée. Others are components of other desserts, like vanilla pastry cream. Custards can be thin like vanilla bean anglaise or thick, sliceable desserts like chocolate chip cheesecake! The three types of custard are baked custards, stirred custards and steamed custards. Curd is an example of a stirred custard! When eggs & egg yolks are combined with sugar and an acid like lemon juice and then heated, they will thicken into a curd.
You can use it as a filling for these lemon coconut cupcakes, flavoring Italian Meringue buttercream instead of extract, as a sauce for easy chocolate cake or fruit tarts, layered with berries and whipped cream on a pavlova cake, or just stirred into yogurt for a sweet, semi-healthy dessert. And many more uses listed below!
Homemade Lemon Curd Ingredients
- Large Eggs & Egg Yolks
- Granulated Sugar
- Lemon Juice
- Kosher Salt
- Cold Butter (unsalted)
Check out my easy lemon curd recipe for detailed ingredients and in-depth instructions to get perfect lemon curd every single time!
Easy Lemon Curd
Chef’s Tips on Lemon Juice & Lemon Zest
It is worth squeezing fresh lemons for your lemon curd. Fresh lemon juice has a brightness and floral notes that bottled lacks. Bottled lemon juice is dull and the flavor is flat. The acidity is also essential to the curding property, so you can substitute an acidic puree like passion fruit puree for passion fruit curd or a combination of orange juice and lemon juice for orange curd. Grapefruit juice also works but maybe not ruby red grapefruits. I don’t use lemon zest because then you must strain the curd.
Why is my jar of lemon curd eggy?
If your lemon curd is eggy, it could be the recipe or something went wrong in your order of incorporation! Whisking the eggs first breaks apart the proteins and separates the yolks. This protects the yolks from denaturing in the presence of sugar or the acidic lemon juice. Denatured egg proteins create tiny lumps that will not come out except by a very fine mesh sieve, so you need to strain your curd. My recipe for lemon curd uses a combination of whole eggs and egg yolks, which ensures the curd is thick but does not taste eggy.
Cakes
Whether you’re using your lemon curd to balance a cake’s texture and taste or throw it over the top, the possibilities are endless! Here are some options for cake-curd matches made in heaven!
This Lemon Cheesecake from the Slow Roasted Italian features a creamy smooth filling with a bright citrus flavor nestled into a buttery graham cracker crust. Pile yours high with marshmallow fluff and lemon zest for an epic dessert! You could also add a layer of lemon curd in between the crust and the filling in your lemon meringue cheesecake or this lemon ginger panna cotta cheesecake!
Lemon Cheesecake
I can’t get over how cute these Lemon Cheesecake Bars from Dessert for Two are! They’re absolutely the perfect summertime potluck recipe! You could also swirl curd directly into the filling of my no bake blueberry cheesecake bars. Those would also be utterly incredible with lemon curd!
Lemon Cheesecake Bars with Lemon Curd
The delicate crumb on this Moist Citrus Curd Cake from Living Sweet Moments is giving me life! Plus, it gives you a chance to try out your lime, lemon, and orange curd all in the same cake. If you have orange curd left over, it would be an excellent addition to my orange upside down cake!
Moist Citrus Curd Cake
Layers of soft poppy seed-speckled lemon cake are topped with tangy lemon curd and cream cheese buttercream frosting for the ultimate summertime (or anytime) showstopping dessert. If you’ve never had lemon poppy seed cake before, now is your time. If you’re intimidated and want to try something more classic, go for this Classic White Cake instead!
lemon poppy seed cake
Pavlova desserts have the perfect balance, and pavlova with lemon curd from Vintage Kitchen is no exception! A meringue base with a crisp exterior and a marshmallow-like center topped with whipped cream and lemon curd, I also love adding some curd to my lemon berry pavlova cake, so I’m right there with you! The sweetness of the pavlova balances the tart lemon curd and lemon juice.
Perfect Pavlova Recipe
Using Lemon Curd in Cakes:
- Fill a layer cake. Lemon curd can be used with a dam of frosting to hold it in place to fill cakes such as this Hummingbird Cake, Strawberry Cake or Fig Cake. It adds some bright citrus flavor to rebalance the sweetness from the other fruit.
- Make a bright and colorful sauce. A lemon curd sauce adds a complementary tart flavor to balance so many different cakes. Try it with lemon pound cake, angel food cake, lemon olive oil cake, or any of my other cake recipes.
Cupcakes
Sometimes I make an entire cupcake roundup, like this Thanksgiving Cupcake roundup, so it should come as no surprise that filling these bite-sized cakes with lemon curd is a fantasy come to life! I love the added bit of cheer you get from biting into a cupcake and getting a boost of lemon!
These Lemon Coconut Cupcakes have a moist coconut cake, a sweet, tart lemon curd filling and are topped with a lemon Italian meringue buttercream! Look me straight in the face and tell me that these cupcakes don’t make you instantly happy! I feel that way when I look at all the lemon dessert recipes on the blog, they’re just so cheerful!
Lemon Coconut Cupcakes
You know me, I need there to be a chocolate version of almost everything. These are fabulously addictive Double Chocolate Lemon Surprise Cupcakes! A rich, moist buttermilk chocolate cake is paired with a silky bittersweet chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream and filled with easy homemade lemon curd.
Double Chocolate Lemon Surprise Cupcakes
Just look at these bright & zesty lemon curd elderflower cupcakes from a collab between Clover Sonoma and Sugar & Charm! I’m not getting any ad pay, I just think they’re super cute. Reminds me that these strawberry shortcake cupcakes would also be the tops filled with lemon curd–cupcakes are portable miracles!
Lemon Curd Elderflower Cupcakes
So you know from my lemon meringue cheesecake that I’m a sucker for a torched-marshmallow top! So, naturally, I couldn’t stop smiling when I saw these perfect little lemon meringue cupcakes from Food Nouveau! Obviously twisting a pie into a cupcake is one of my favorite concepts (here’s looking at you Pumpkin Pecan Pie Cupcakes).
Lemon Meringue Cupcakes
Using Lemon Curd in Frosting:
- Use it to flavor buttercream like this Swiss meringue buttercream like I did on this American Flag Cake, Italian meringue buttercream or even to heighten the flavor of an easy lemon buttercream. Add about ½ cup of lemon curd and you’re off to the races!
- Make a lemon curd glaze! I think an honorable mention is in order for the killer lemon curd glaze you could make to top these mixed berry pop tarts or lemon poppyseed muffins! Mix powdered sugar, milk, and lemon curd together to the desired consistency and you’re ready to glaze.
Cookies
When your cookie tray or cookie jar needs a pick-me-up, you know who to call: lemon curd! A little goes a long way when using lemon curd in your cookies, and it makes the ideal substitution to almost any cookie commonly assembled with jam!
I’m serious about my shortbread so I was so excited to see these lemon curd cookies from aptly named Little Sunny Kitchen! And that luscious lemon glaze–yes, yes, yes! I’ve absolutely done the same thing with my thumbprint cookies, and sometimes I feel daring and put lemon curd in the middle of my chocolate thumbprints for an exciting contrast of flavors.
The Best Lemon Curd Thumbprint Cookies
If one cookie is wonderful, two is even better! Use lemon curd instead of raspberry jam to fill tender gluten-free cookies with this Lemon Curd Linzer Cookie recipe from the Gluten Free Austrian! You could also stack lemon sugar cookies or these soft sugar cookies around a lemon curd filling for a lemon flavor explosion!
Gluten Free Lemon Curd Linzer Cookies
You and I both knew it would be on this list, and here she is. The belle of the ball, the stunning treats that are lemon bars! These simple, yet elegant bake-sale favorites are basically lemon curd layered on shortbread cookies. I can’t get enough of them or their brownie-textured cousin the lemon blondie!
Lemon Bars
As I rave about in my mini meyer lemon coconut scones, the lemon-coconut pairing is to die for! So I had to mention these Lemon Curd Coconut Macaroons from Simply Stacie! Sweetened coconut and lemon curd make for a soft and chewy cookie experience!
Lemon Curd Coconut Macaroons
Tarts
Spread a layer of lemon curd on the tart shell before adding the filling, and any of these tarts will turn into pure lemon magic! Let me know in the comments which one ends up being your favorite!
Mini, flower-like lemon curd tartlets from Tikkido make my day! Bright lemon curd and a sugar cookie crust. Similar to my Lemon Buttermilk Sugar Cookie Tart but MINI! We’re winning on all counts here. Put a layer of lemon curd in there and you’ll be in lemon paradise!
Lemon Curd Tartlets Recipe
You want to make the whole tart, and I see you and I respect it. This tart and buttery Meyer Lemon Tart has a nutty sweet crust and would go with almost any meal or special occasion! If you’re feeling a lemon-strawberry direction, make a variation on this Strawberry Custard Tart with a layer of lemon curd!
Meyer Lemon Tart
Don’t bother making a crust and just make these mini lemon tarts with phyllo cups from The Savory Cipolla! Delicate, crispy, and tangy, they’re bite-sized and perfect. If you’d like to work with a mixture of your favorite fresh fruits, use my Puff Pastry Fruit Tart for added inspiration!
Mini Lemon Tarts with Phyllo Cups
Using Lemon Curd in Tarts:
- Add it to the custard. Lemon curd can be added to your favorite tart-filling custards such as pastry cream, but it can also be added to crème brûlée and homemade vanilla pudding!
- Make it extra citrusy. Take a citrus-forward pie, like lemon meringue pie or a creamy mango meringue pie and make it extra intense by adding lemon curd!
- Brighten earthy spices. Take a pie with warming spices, like say easy pumpkin pie, and add a dollop of lemon curd on top! You’d be surprised how well the flavors meld, check out my classic pumpkin pie with a twist for proof!
Breakfast Pastries
When I said earlier the possibilities are endless, it might have been an understatement. Imagine lemon curd spooned onto English muffins, buttermilk biscuits, or moist banana bread. Lemon curd also makes a fantastic topping for whole wheat pancakes, adding a flare of citrus flavor.
These gorgeous crepes with lemon curd from Art of Natural Living have me looking forward to starting my day off sweet! I love how the curd is used for filling delicate crepes, and the mascarpone is a genius addition to balance out the tartness! I sometimes even sneak mascarpone into my frosting, like in these double chocolate cupcakes with cherry mascarpone frosting.
Easiest Crepes with Lemon Curd
Don’t even get me started on these easy lemon cream cheese danishes from Cooking with Curls. Flaky puff pastry filled with silky cream cheese and topped with tart lemon curd sounds like the brunch pastry dreams are made of! It has inspired me to fill some of my Jelly Donuts with curd this week!
Lemon Cream Cheese Danish
My Vegan Minimalist has your easy sweet bread needs covered with these vegan lemon curd rolls! They’re stunning topped with pecans, lemon peel, and a shiny apricot glaze. I’m 100% going to swap the butter for lemon curd in the filling of my Meyer Lemon Poppy Seed Sweet Rolls for a variation on their theme!
Vegan Lemon Curd Rolls
Ice Cream, Yogurt & Toppings
Dessert or snack? You decide! Spread lemon curd on toast or swirl it into Greek yogurt with fresh berries. Spoon it on your favorite homemade ice cream for an afternoon boost!
This Blackberry Lemon Curd Parfait from Brunch & Batter is refreshing with a swirl of lemon curd! Vanilla yogurt, fresh blackberries, and crunchy granola team up with lemon curd to make a treat that will make your day! I tried it out with a batch of my Honey Granola–and it was a match made in heaven!
Blackberry Lemon Curd Parfait
3-ingredient limoncello lemon ice cream? Sign me up! The Kitchen Is My Playground uses lemon curd in one of my favorite desserts ever (ice cream) and it’s beyond lemony! I’m also really into lemon curd spooned on top of a bowl of vanilla ice cream. Enough said.
3-Ingredient Limoncello Lemon Ice Cream
Maybe I saved the best for last, or maybe you had to earn it! This recipe has been one of the most popular on the blog for a long time, and there’s a good reason! This is no ordinary Lemon Whipped Cream! This Lemon Curd Whipped Cream Recipe makes whipped cream that is perfectly tart and flavored with lemon curd! Folding lemon curd into whipped cream gives it an extra silky, rich texture. It is still light and fluffy but has a nice body to it. Plus it helps homemade whipped cream hold up for longer refrigeration!
You can serve it on its own with berries or with something unexpected like a lemon posset!
Lemon Curd Whipped Cream
BONUS! Lemon Mousse with Lemon Curd from A Baking Journey is super light and creamy! This beautiful tangy dessert is perfect served in cups at the end of a dinner party. I’d layer this into my super popular Lemon Berry Trifle for even more lemon brightness.
Lemon Mousse with Lemon Curd
Before You Go
Check our our selection of chef-developed lemon dessert recipes!
What a beautiful collection of recipes. I just happen to have some lemon curd in my refrigerator waiting for one (or more) of these!
It’s fate! Enjoy!