Healthy meets Junk Food: Grapefruit Curd

My coworker brought me a huge bag of grapefruits today and told me to do whatever I want with them. She has a tree at home that's producing more fruits than she can handle and since I'm a major foodie, she immediately thought of me. LOL, I've been working with my colleagues for just a few days now and they already know that I have a passion for food!

Anyway, I was in the mood for lemon vanilla cupcakes w/ lemon curd (b/c of Tartelette) so I decided to modify it a little and make grapefruit cupcakes w/ grapefruit curd.

The curd ended up being so delicious, that I consumed the whole thing and decided to forgo making the cupcakes.

Here's the recipe for grapefruit curd:

Ingredients

-grapefruit zest
-half cup of grapefruit juice (about 2-3 grapefruits)
-1 1/2 cups of sugar
-8 tbsp butter
-3 eggs, lightly beaten
-2 egg yolks, lightly beaten

Directions

Microwave the butter for 10 secs. You want to soften it but not completely melt it. Stir/whisk in the rest of the ingredients. Microwave for 1 minute. Take out and whisk. Then microwave, then whisk, then microwave, then whisk (you get the idea). Repeat this until the mixture thickens and becomes a pudding like consistency. If it seems like it's taking forever to thicken, don't worry, it will. It just takes a little patience to be microwaving and stirring till it finally firms up a little.

After it has thickened, you can pour it into a sterilized glass jar and store it in the fridge for a few weeks. I normally pour mine into a clean spaghetti sauce jar and tie a bow around the lid to make it look nice. Today however, I devoured the whole thing straight out of the bowl, so no pretty little glass jar for me :(

Enjoy!!

P.S. You can omit/reduce the amt of butter if you want but the texture will change. The butter makes it incredibly smooth so you can slather it on toast, pancakes, etc. If the butter's gone, it becomes super thick and almost hard (tough taffy-like) and is hell on teeth (imagine chomping on a stale piece of starburst candy). Also you can reduce the amt of sugar too. Taste it before you pop it into the microwave and adjust accordingly (don't cut out too much though, the sugar is what thickens the grapefruit juice and makes it jam-like. Without it, the grapefruit juice will remain in its liquid form).

Food for thought: Grapefruit has anti-aging (spermidine), anti-cancer (liminoids, lycopene), and can help lower triglycerides. Another thing to keep in mind: the scent of grapefruit can make a person appear 6 yrs younger and more attractive. I don't recommend slathering yourself with grapefruit curd & then sauntering over to the nearest hot guy (or girl) though... they might think you're crazy and plus you'll get attacked by a flying swarm of insects ;-)