Lemon Curd Donuts

I have a big thanks to Nicole at Baking Bites for coming up with such yummy recipes! I had picked up some Meyer lemons when my husband noticed they were on sale. I had heard of them before, but never used them. I am so glad I finally did! The weather is beautiful in Seattle right now, and I wanted something lemony to echo the sunshine.

UW Cherry Blossoms

For these “donuts”, you bake the batter so they are kind of like muffins, but super fluffy. Almost like a lemon poundcake. I liked that she has plain and lemon varieties to choose from. I went full on lemon today, with lemon donuts that are filled with her lemon curd.

Lemon curd was something I had tried before, but I wasn’t a fan of the recipe I used before. Especially because it was more lemon cream than curd. This had such a bright flavor: nice and tart, but good with the sugary coating on the donuts.

I made the curd first so it would have time to chill and set up in the fridge.

Lemon juice requires lots of lemons!

Ingredients for the Lemon Curd (low-fat) (From Nicole at Baking Bites)

• 1/3 cup strained, fresh lemon juice
• 5 Tablespoons sugar
• 1 egg, room temperature

Directions

Start by beating an egg until it gets frothy.

Then, on the stove, dissolve the sugar in the water over medium heat.

Dissolving sugar

Add the lemon zest,

then pour the mixture into the egg, whisking the whole time (I used my immersion blender attachment). Pour it through a sieve back into the saucepan and bring to a boil (mine didn’t fully boil, but got nice and thick).

Then, add the vanilla extract. Pour into a bowl and cover the top of the curd with clear wrap to keep it from forming a skin and put it in the fridge.

Ingredients for the Donuts  (From Nicole at Baking Bites) I made her recipe, but made full-sized donut-muffins with the lemon flavor. It will make 10 big ones.

• 1.5 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2.5 teaspoons lemon zest
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 2 Tablespoons butter, melted
• 1/2 cup sugar, for rolling
• 2/3 cup lemon curd–the lemon curd recipe above makes a little less

Directions

Grease a muffin pan and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Whisk flour, baking soda, and salt together. Get the buttermilk ready as well.

In a large bowl, beat together the egg and sugar until you get a nice light color. Then, beat in the oil, vanilla, and lemon zest. Alternate adding in the flour mixture and buttermilk in thirds.

Pour into the muffin pan, then bake for about 15 minutes if you are doing the full-size ones, too.

It only makes 10 full size donuts

While baking, prep a bowl with sugar and another bowl with melted butter.

When the muffins are ready, brush the tops with butter and carefully remove them from the pan and roll them in the sugar so that they get coated. Then, let them cool before filling them.

To fill them, simply prep a pastry bag with the curd and a pastry tip (preferably one with a large opening) and inject into the top.

You can do the sides, but it leaked out of mine and I thought the tops were really cute! I didn’t quite have enough lemon curd to do all 10 donuts, so next time I would make more curd.

Pretty version: