Experiment #2: Vegan Lemon Curd "A"

I've never actually eaten lemon curd, but I saw this tasty looking lemon cake at Whole Foods with a mound of lemon curd on top and a cute little bee made from a chocolate straw and 2 almond slices. Eeep! I found a ton of veganized recipes online and tried this one from vegansaurus! first:

1 cup fresh lemon juice (I used organic lemons.)

1/2 cup water

1 1/2 cups evaporated cane juice

4 T cornstarch

pinch salt

zest of 2 lemons

1/3 cup plain, non-dairy creamer

2 T Earth Balance

Blend the lemon juice, water, evaporated cane juice, cornstarch, and salt until smooth. Transfer to a saucepan, add lemon zest, and whisk over medium heat until it boils. This took me 15 minutes. Stop whisking and boil for another minute. Remove from the heat and add the creamer and Earth Balance and stir until melted. Voila! Not let it cool a tad before putting it in the fridge in a glass jar or other container for safe keeping.

The lemon curd was a great consistency, and whoa was it lemony! I think it's just too strong to cover the top of a cake, so next I'm going to try a lemon pie filling recipe I found online that calls for almost half a cup of orange juice and less lemon juice and sugar. It'll be milder and better in larger quantities. For the time being, I plan to fold this lemon curd into lemon poppyseed muffins for breakfast. That recipe will follow soon.

Color---Vegan lemon curd comes out a lot paler than the non-vegan version since it doesn't use egg yolks. I added about a half to a full teaspoon of turmeric to the finished product to make it look more lemony, and it worked great without altering the flavor of the curd.

What I learned from this experiment:

1. I need a milder lemon filling to use on top of a cake. Search for lemon pie filling recipes.

2. Turmeric works great as a natural food coloring and won't alter the flavor as long as it's used in moderation.

3. Try folding the curd into muffins or pound cake.