Raspberry Lemon Curd | Summer Sweetness Amidst the Chaos.
Raspberry Lemon Curd from the makers of Ball® Home Canning | Summer Sweetness Amidst the Chaos.
This post is sponsored by the makers of Ball® home canning products. *
We’re packing up boxes now.
I keep finding seeds tucked in the corners of drawers, slips of paper with hand-scribbled recipes, dried flower heads stuck to the bottoms of baskets. We are moving, and so we are savoring every bowl full of berries and every last garden harvest here. As the seasons turn toward high summer, and the season of our life is shifting, I find myself softening into the changes. Cancer season does this for me: recalling the past, dusted it in golden light, and reminds me how deeply we’ve rooted here.
A Summer Delight
This week, as a sweet little break from the chaos and the madness, I made Raspberry Lemon Curd, a tested and approved freezer recipe from the makers of Ball® Home Canning products that tastes like our very first garden.
Back when the children were small and wild, the raspberry canes grew taller than them. Our raspberry patch was planted in the back corner of the cottage garden along our picket fence, growing joyfully invasive. The berries always came fast and sudden in midsummer, staining fingers and mouths, eaten just as quickly as they were picked, filling bellies.
There’s something about berries that feel like a portal to memory. Their sweetness is so fleeting, their season so short. You can't hold them for long without crushing them and maybe that’s the point.
This curd captures them at their best, tart, floral, sun-warmed, wrapped in lemony, buttery goodness. Served as nostalgia tucked into a mini tart
So here is the recipe, along with my heart in it. You can find this recipe on page 161 of the 38th Edition of the Ball® Blue Book Guide to Preserving.
Raspberry Lemon Curd
For preserving in half pint Ball® jars (makes about 4 half-pints)
Ingredients:
16 oz fresh raspberries
½ cup water
1 teaspoon bottled lemon juice
½ cup bottled lemon juice
2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
8 ounces cup unsalted cold butter, cubed
1 ¼ cups granulated sugar
1 ½ tablespoons Ball® Low or No-Sugar Needed Pectin
3 large eggs
2 egg yolk
To Make:
Prep
Wash raspberries under cold running water, drain. Reserve 8 whole raspberries for use later.
Make raspberry puree.
Berries, washed and ready…
Simmer raspberries and water over low heat until raspberries break down, about 5 minutes. Strain raspberries through a fine mesh strainer, gently stirring with a spatula to extract juice. Measure about 2 cups of raspberry juice. Combine raspberry juice and 1 teaspoon bottled lemon juice in a small saucepan. Add pectin, stirring to dissolve. Bring mixture to a boil. Add ½ cup sugar. Stirring constantly. Bring mixture to a boil; boil hard 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove mixture from heat if a gel begins to form before 1 minute is completed. Set aside to cool.
Cook the curd.
In a double boiler or heatproof bowl over simmering water. Put saucepan over medium heat and bring water to a simmer. Put eggs, egg yolks, lemon juice, grated lemon peel, and ¾ cup sugar in bowl and mix. Whisk egg mixture constantly until it thickens about 10 minutes. Mixture will have the consistency of pudding. Remove bowl from heat and let cool 5 minutes. Begin whisking mixture vigorously, gradually add a few cubes of cold butter while whisking until all butter is incorporate. Continue whisking until volume increases and steam stops rising off the lemon curd. Set curd aside to cool completely. Seal, label and freeze.
Bittersweet final memories of making in this kitchen.
Serve
Layer the raspberry jelly and lemon curd together when filling the jar or spoon an equal amount of raspberry jelly into each half pint jar. Fill individual tart shells and top with raspberries for a delicious dessert.
NOTE FOR FREEZING IN JARS: If looking to freeze in glass instead a plastic, use a straight sided jar, one without a shoulder like the Ball® Wide Mouth Jar and Ball® Half Pint Jar. Make sure to leave a ½ to 1 inch headspace.
A Spoonful of Memory
I put one jar straight into the fridge and labeled it “now.” The others get tucked into the freezer for winter mornings…
This curd reminds me not just of raspberries, but of what it means to tend something long enough for it to grow. Of gardens dug with small shovels, berry juice on little chins, jars lined on kitchen counters while the cicadas hum.
Cancer season teaches us that home isn’t just where we live, it’s what we carry. The rituals, the harvests, the memories, the flavor of a summer long gone. Making meaning from the moments, hard and soft. I’ll carry these raspberries into our next space, and every one after that.
Thanks for being here, for sharing in the leaving, the remembering, and the sweet spoonfuls in between.
With love,
Alyson
*Disclosure: This is a sponsored post that is part of an ongoing partnership with the Fresh Preserving Division of Newell Brands. They have provided jars, equipment and monetary compensation. All thoughts and opinions expressed remain my own.