VALENCIA ORANGE & HONEY CURD

VALENCIA ORANGE & HONEY CURD

Navel oranges or tangelos can also be used if you don't happen to have a Valencia orange tree growing in your backyard 🙂 Delicious on toast, or mixed with marscapone and used as an icing or to fill tarts.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
• 100 g butter
• Juice of 1 lime or lemon
• 3 tablespoons mild flavoured honey [I used native bush honey]
• Pinch of salt
• 3 free range eggs

Instructions

• Strain the orange juice to remove any pith and flesh. Combine orange juice, butter, lime juice, honey and salt in a ceramic or glass bowl and place over a simmering saucepan of hot water. Once the mixture is melted together add the eggs one at a time whisking until smooth. Mix with a wooden spoon until the mixture thickly coats the back of the spoon. This took about 10 minutes of patiently stirring so the mixture doesn't curdle. Pour into a jar and cool, the curd will thicken as it cools. Keep in the fridge and use within 1 month.

Valencia Orange & Honey Curd just sounds so much better than boring old Orange Curd. When I wrote the title of this post I wasn’t even sure if our oranges were of the Valencia variety, I just loved the romantic sound of the name. However, a quick goggle search confirmed that our oranges are in fact Valencia’s as they don’t have a tummy button like navel oranges [you can read all about HERE if you are interested].

Truth be told it has taken me a few years to really appreciate our abundant Valencia orange tree. You see I wasn’t a big orange fan, mostly due to the out-of-season tasteless oranges I had encountered. And I had tried the oranges from our tree and decided they were too tart so I used to give them away to friends. Then quite by mistake the oranges remained on the tree for a few months longer than usual. It was my husband sitting with the kids in the warm spring sun with orange juice dripping down there chins that convinced me. The intense sweet juice of our homegrown Valencia oranges [see now I am in love with calling them that] was a whole new orange eating experience for me, I am now an orange lover. Albeit homegrown oranges.

The fooling was in the fruit turning orange and looking ready to eat in winter. However, it is not until a gentle yielding of the skin when squeezed that the orange is ready to eat. Now that I know this orange season is something I look forward too. If only there could be some way to turn astringent persimmons into crunchy sweet persimmons our homegrown garden would be perfect!

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