Once again this spring my neighbor’s kumquat tree produced more fruit than any one household could consume. So she shared the bounty with me and I was overrun with kumquats. I’ve made kumquat bundt cake and loads of other recipes last year. This year I was looking for something different. Since I have a sous vide and had made lemon curd earlier in the year, I thought perhaps kumquat curd might be possible and fairly tasty.
After doing some internet searching, I decided on a recipe that didn’t require my sous vide after all. It worked out well for me because the kumquats are pureed and I had already pureed a whole bunch so I had these ready to go. The other nice thing about this recipe is it uses whole eggs instead of egg yolks. I like this for two reason:
- Separating eggs can be a messy, tricky pain. Needing yolks is more forgiving than needing whites but it is still a pain point
- Egg yolks only = leftover egg whites needing to be used. If you make angel food cakes or meringues then having extra whites is great. However, if you aren’t doing this you have to find SOMETHING to use them in. I often make fried rice for lunch when I have egg white leftovers
The key to this recipe, like any custard adjacent recipe, is to make sure your eggs are room temperatures before you start heating them. Also I melted the butter even though this recipe doesn’t SAY to do that. It just seemed wrong to cream it like I was making cookies. I also made sure the butter was cooled enough that it wouldn’t scramble my eggs when I combined it with them. Then it was whisking, whisking and more whisking. A silicone coated whisk is your best friend if you are doing anything like this in a non-stick pan. Lastly, if you have a funnel for jam making or canning use it to get the curd into the jars. A quick substitute is to make a funnel shape guide with parchment. I’d recommend cooling the jars on a wire rack as it distributes the heat more easily then setting them on the counter. Once they are done you can put them in the fridge to eat later.