There were lemon languishing in my fridge. It would have been wrong to let them spoil. They were speaking to me and wanted me to make them into something naughty. So I did. I made the braids again. They are so pretty, they taste good, and they are a little different than that other bread I do.
The dough for these is more of a brioche dough which means there are lots of rich things in the dough like milk instead of water and butter! You start with…a starter. =)
Yeast and sugar.
Some flour.
And warm milk.
Beat that stuff together until smooth.
Then cover it in plastic wrap to keep is warm and let it ferment for 30 minutes.
This is how it looks after 30 minutes. The yeast are happy!
Then start throwing more flour in and other things like eggs.
Once it’s mixed smooth again I get to add an entire stick of butter piece by piece.
Yep, the whole thing.
Adding enough flour to form a kneadable dough and knead it until smooth. I cheat and make my mixer do the kneading. It doesn’t have feelings and doesn’t care that I cheat. Work smarter, not harder. Or something like that.
Let it raise for 2 hours and it gets all puffy looking like that. Then you deflate it, cover it back up and let it party in the fridge all night long!
This is the beginnings of lemon curd. Mmmmmmm….lemon curd. These are the lemons that were languishing. They are thanking me for making them feel useful. Squeeze enough lemons to get a half cup of lemon juice. Before squeezing them use your microplane zester to zest about a tablespoon of zest. Wow, that’s a lot of zest in that sentence. My little plastic juicer… 50 cents at Savers. Baking makes me happy…and so do deals.
For the other half of our lemon curd I whisk eggs and sugar together until smooth and pale yellow. These metal bowls my husband brought to the marriage, they are great for double boiler use.
Double boiler action! Heat this up and then add in the lemon juice and zest and keep whisking so you don’t scramble your eggs you temper them. Once it gets thick, take off the heat and let cool and roll out your dough.
On your new rolling board with your new rolling pin.
I didn’t show you the rest because I already did. If I have to tell you twice then you weren’t listening the first time!
I shared these I promise. I sent an entire one to work with my hubby and it was gone by 10am. I think next time I am going to divide the dough by four because the braids just get so big. If they are smaller I can fit them into bags easier, which means I can freeze them, and that would be a good thing!
Recipes Used: Lemon Curd Braids
