I love lemons. I’ve always liked them, but growing Meyer lemons, I’ve come to really love them. They’re sweeter than regular lemons, larger, juicier, and have thin peels and very few seeds.
They grow large in my garden, and they are such a bright, deep yellow that between the color and the size, people think they are oranges.
Despite their bright color, it’s the egg yolks that give color to lemon curd.
I recently used lemon curd on top of these meringues. Lemons start to ripen in my garden the last week of November and will hang ripe on the trees through the beginning of April. Pomegranates are ripe in October/November, and they will last a few months in the refrigerator (you can also freeze the arils).
I am currently growing six Meyer lemon trees in the garden: two large, older trees, which provide hundreds of lemons, a small potted tree that gave me a few lemons this year, and three small trees in my white garden that will give me a few additional lemons each year; these trees will stay small as they are limited in the small space they have.
I have five pomegranate trees in the garden: Four small potted trees and one small tree that I planted in the garden last year. The tree in the ground will be able to get much larger than the potted ones, but right now it’s about the same size. These give me a small number of pomegranates. Last year (and in years past) I have been able to pick pomegranates from those who had so many on one of two large trees that they couldn’t use all of them.
We loved this dessert, so it will be on the menu in winter and early spring for years to come.
You can find the recipe here.
More lemon recipes:
You are blessed to be able to grow and enjoy the fruit from your trees! The numerous squirrels and chipmunks in our area our so destructive, we won’t be able to enjoy any fruit, and neither will they. The animals don’t actually eat it, they just like to tear it down. 🙁 They do the same to any plants that begin to sprout in a garden, and fences don’t deter or stop them! What little that actually grows is quickly devoured by deer. We have tried everything, from chicken wire cages to deer repellent, and nothing works. The squirrels and chipmunks dig holes under the garden, and the deer seem immune. The only thing that has “worked” against the ground animals is for the benefit of the birds. My husband mounted the feeder very high in the air, on a tall wooden post. The deer can no longer feed from it, and it’s too tall for the squirrels to climb.
People sometimes wonder why I garden in the desert. While it may seem a disadvantage, there are lots of things that like the desert climate, and drip irrigation is a wonderful invention (plus 95% of the water used in our county is reclaimed and reused). We don’t battle deer, squirrels, or chipmunks here. Some neighborhoods nearby have rabbits and quail that will eat things in the garden. We have seen quail a few times and a rabbit once, but the constant presence of children helps to keep them away! Our biggest problems are birds and bugs (and when the other fruits—not citrus–are ripe in the garden, we take turns running out to shoo the birds away during the last week of ripeness).
Brandy, I noticed that the lemon curd required more egg yolks that the meringues. What did you do with all the leftover egg whites?
How long does the lemon curd last in the fridge?
Oooh, thanks! I’m excited to give the lemon curd recipe a whirl. 🙂
Thank you so much for the recipes. I think I can actually manage the lemon curd and plan on trying it this weekend. I saw Meyer lemons at Aldi this month. Somehow I don’t seem to accomplish the wow factor like you do. You are a great inspiration in my life and make me smile each week. I imagine this will really make my daughter happy. Scones and a roll cake planned for this.
I wanted to recommend another lemon recipe. It’s in the Betty Crocker cookbook (my edition is early 60’s, but it’s a popular one and is probably in later editions as well.) It’s called Lemon Cake Pudding. You stir a few ingedients together and whip the 2 egg whites until stiff then fold them into the other ingredients. It cooks in the oven and makes a light sponge cake on the top with a lemon pudding on the bottom. I serve it inverted. It is a very easy recipe and cooks while you eat if you time it just right. Best of all, it’s delicious! A nice light dessert after a heavier meal. I’ve used it for years and still love it every time. You’ll want to serve it hot so just a few minutes out of the oven before serving. You might have to double the recipe for your family, depending on how many of your children are eating adult portions these days. It requires 2 eggs and some milk for a single recipe, plus one lemon.
If you can’t find it, just let me know and I can post it.
Two weeks. But once you taste it, it might only last two minutes 😀
Make more meringues and top them with something else 😀 Or else you can simply add them to eggs for scrambled eggs, omlettes, etc.
Just know that you don’t have to use Meyer lemons. Regular lemons will work just fine. Youll need more because they aren’t as juicy and are smaller, but the measurements are the same.
I love lemon curd and sometimes buy it at Trader Joe’s (small jar at $3.49!). I will give it a shot and make it myself one of these days. Yum.
Dear Marcia,
this sounds delicious! Would you mind posting the recipe as I am living overseas (Germany) and don’t have access to that cookbook?
Thank you in advance,
Kiki
Dear Brandy,
this sounds wonderful, thank you for posting!
Kiki
PS: I am lurking here for the last 2-3 years and would like to thank you and everyone else for the encouragement you give and the informations you share!
You can also use them in royal icing if you’re making cookies or buns to ice.
I would take lemon curd over chocolate any day! You joked above that it would only last 2 minutes, I would totally agree with that!
Curious – are these larger meringues similar to the smaller meringues cookies (crispy outside, soft inside)?
This photo is just beautiful – I love your ways of contrasting. Thank you for all you do.
I think I’m missing something about pomegranates; maybe someone here can explain it to me. It looks like you cut them open, spoon out the pulp-covered seeds (arils?) and discard the rest. OK, so far, so good. But the few times I’ve tried it to eat the seeds,I didn’t find it all that appealing. Yes, the pomegranate pulp is tasty, but are you supposed to swallow the seeds whole? Crunch them up and swallow? Spit them out? Maybe I just don’t like eating crunchy seeds; I’ve never seen the point to eating pumpkins seeds with the hulls on either. A bit much fiber for my taste…
Brandi,
This looks amazing! I recently found your blog and have been reading past entries. You are so inspiring!
Pretty much, but don’t use a spoon. Just peel back the skin (kind of bend it back) so that you don’t break all of the arils. Yes, you eat the whole thing. The only way not to eat the seed inside would be to juice them (and it takes a TON of pomegranates to make much juice). If you don’t like them, you could still make the recipe and leave off the pomegranate or use something else (chocolate chips, for instance).
Or you could make lemon curd and put it on something else altogether, like on the Nutella and lemon curd crepe cake I made. Lemon curd on crepes is amazing!
Here’s a link that we used when we first started buying whole pomegranates:
https://www.thespruce.com/how-to-eat-a-pomegranate-2216895
It talks about how to seed the pomegranate – we just eat the seeds whole, no pulp. Some people don’t like the texture, and if that’s the case, just substitute for something else.
Hope that’s helpful,
Lea
These would be perfect for Passover!
Thanks so much, Lea & Brandy! I appreciate your educating me on this, and the how-to link was very helpful. I’m going to give these another chance and try it again. The pomegranate arils sprinkled on the lemon curd are just so beautiful…
Lemon Cake Pudding
1/4 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp grated lemon rind (1 lemon)
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 egg yolks, well beaten
1 cup milk
2 egg whites, stiffly beaten
Heat oven to 350 Degrees F. Measure flour, sugar and salt into mixing bowl. Stir in lemon rind and juice, egg yolks, and milk. Fold in egg whites. Pour into a one quart baking dish oe 6 custard cups. Set in pan of hot water, water should come up about one inch on sides of baking dish(es.) Bake 50 minutes. Makes six servings. Invert custard cups onto dessert plate or shallow bowl. If using a 1 quart baking pan, cut into portions, and spoon out the cake, spooning the pudding over the top of each serving.
This can also be baked in a 9 inch pie crust but I have not tried that variation. It can also be made with lime or orange juice and zest. Having tasted the lemon, I regret to tell you I have not tried any other fruit either.
Sorry I don’t have conversions handy for metric measures.
That should say OR custard cups.
Brandy, have you shared the recipe for the Nutella and lemon curd crepe cake? I might have just missed it 🙂 Love keeping up with you and hope your are feeling well 🙂
I haven’t made meringue cookies, but these individual meringues do have that texture. There is not a lot of soft inside, though–the inside is mostly air.
Dena, I am not making a separate recipe for that. It’s just crepes (recipe already on my site) layered with lemon curd (shared with this recipe) and Nutella (some layers curd, some layers Nutella) and then topped with whipped cream. Simple!
Brandy, you don’t have squirrels out there?
Athanasia, we don’t have trees here in the desert! Our desert is so dry that there is almost nothing growing naturally. We get four inches of rain a year. In Arizona, where you see cactus, they have 14 inches a year. Here cactus do not grow naturally; they have to be watered with drip irrigation if you plant them in your yard. In California, where I grew up, you get more rain too, and can see grassy hills that are green for a few weeks in early spring and dry most of the rest of the year. There were also oak trees—but I never saw squirrels as a child, either.
Our desert here is not sand–more like rocks on top of a ground so hard that it is like concrete (at my last house, it took two men all day to jackhammer a hole for a small tree we wanted to plant).