Lesser Spotted Lemons

I am trying to sort out my pantry, and use up tins and jars which have been lurking at the back of the shelf for far too long. And right at the back I came across a jar of lemon curd. Where did it come from? Why did I buy it? or rather, why on earth did I buy this 'basics' curd? Above is the lovely Tiptree Jar, with these ingredients - Sugar, Butter, Lemon Juice[11%] Whole Eggs, Citric Acid, Pectin, Lemon Oil.  


And here is the Sainsbury's basics curd, with these ingredients - Glucose-Fructose Syrup, Water, Palm Oil, Maize Starch, Dried Egg, Gelling Agent: Pectin; Citric Acid, Lemon Oil [0.1%], Acetic Acid, Antioxidant: Ascorbic Acid; Acidity Regulator: Sodium Citrate; Colours: Curcumin, Beta-carotene.

That's right - the Tiptree one contains more than 10% lemon- that's 100 times more than the Basics, with a mere 0.1% ! Not to mention butter and whole eggs in one, and lots of nontraditional curd ingredients in the other.
Maybe that is why I spent 30p on the supermarket own brand - and not £2.30 on the pukka stuff from Essex.

But I found a recipe online to use it up - the Daily Telegraph had a three-ingredient pudding, needing just a jar of curd, eggs and flour. So I decided to use the jar in a pud. "Xanthe's Magic Lemon Pud"

Ingredients

1 500g jar of lemon curd

2 eggs

45g plain flour

Method

Preheat the oven to Gas 4 / 180C / Fan 160.

Beat the lemon curd, flour and egg yolks together.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff, and then fold them into the rest of the mixture. Scrape the mixture into a buttered 1 litre ovenproof dish.

Place the dish in a roasting tin and pour boiling water around it to a depth of about 5cm. Measure out 150ml of boiling water and pour this over the top of the pudding mix.

Bake for 35 minutes until risen and browned. The pudding should be dry to the touch, but still a little wobbly. Serve with pouring or lightly whipped cream [or custard]

So this is what mine looked like 

I was quite pleased with it - we had it half of it hot from the oven at lunchtime when it was cold, windy and wet outside. It tasted good. The top was a light sponge, and underneath a lemon sauce.
However I let it cool and put the remainder into the fridge. When I reheated it in two pudding bowls that evening, it tasted quite strange!! The sauce went very thick and gloopy - Bob didn't realise it was the same pud he had eaten a few hours earlier. I suspect that with proper curd it might have been ok. But this is not a recipe where you can substitute - unless it is all going to be eaten immediately. We live and learn...