I used to hate lemon curd as a child, but the only lemon curd that I'd tasted at that point was the nasty sweet sickly synthetic lemon curd in a jar. Lemon curd was something that was always in our pantry when I was little, and my mum must have probably bought every lemon curd ever made in the vain hope that I might like one of them - I never did.

I don't know what on earth made me think that I would like my own homemade lemon curd, but something obviously made me think that I might. So a few years ago now I started making my own. It is absolutely delicious, and there's always a jar of homemade lemon curd in my fridge now.

To make approximately 1 litre of lemon curd.
Ingredients:
4 unwaxed lemons
4 eggs
4 egg yolks
300g caster sugar
200g unsalted butter
Instructions:
Zest and juice the lemons. Beat the eggs, yolks and sugar together until the sugar has dissolved. Add the butter, lemon juice and zest and heat gently in a pan on a low heat, until the mixture is thick and smooth and looks like lemon curd. Pour into a sterilised jar, seal, and keep in the fridge.

This is absolutely delicious, and it's so easy to make. It has a wonderful aroma of fresh lemons, and it's a vibrant yellow colour. It has a beautiful smooth lemony tangy flavour, and everyone that has tried it loves it. This makes quite a thick lemon curd, you can stand a spoon up in it. It tends to keep for up to a few weeks in the fridge, but to be honest it's all been eaten before we get to that point anyway.

I've been making this for years now, it's really quick and easy to make, I could probably make it in my sleep as I've made it that often. It's so much nicer than the pre-packaged lemon curd that you buy in jars in the supermarket, it's fresh and it's natural, and it's not packed full of spooky preservatives, colourings and E numbers.

There's tonnes of uses for lemon curd; obviously you can spread it on toast or bread or scones, it's nice with natural yogurt, I've used it to sandwich together a cake, I've had it dolloped on pancakes, you can use it as the lemon layer in a lemon meringue pie, I've used it as a lemon layer in a trifle, I've used it in a bun or cake mix to make lemon buns or cake, the list of uses goes on and on really - it's very versatile.