[Sca-cooks] lemon curd

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Kathleen A. Roberts:
>just made my first batch this weekend.   pretty tasty and nicely 
>tart. making the office be my guinea pigs before i do it for the 
>feast (lemon curd and scones as well as pizzelles should work 
>nicely).
>
>wasn't very hard but the texture is a tad grainy.  any suggestions? 
>has anyone tried making it with artificial sweetner like splenda or 
>sugar twin? or is the sugar vital to the chemistry?
>
>cailte

I think sugar is part of the chemistry: sugar softens proteins 
strands, kind of like a shortening or a dough tenderizer (well, I'm 
surmising this, but I know the part about its being a dough 
tenderizer is a fact, and the rest I'm guessing). As for graininess, 
you might have gotten some egg white in there, or you might have 
heated it too quickly.

If you want to experiment with sugar substitutes, you might do best 
with one of those glycerine syrups, since the glycerine might help 
provide some of the stabilizing influence the sugar would have 
provided. But then, of course, you have added liquid.

Adamantius