it's a curd to me, again

Now we are in Sweet 16 Party Prep Lockdown, so the Dominican beans I was planning to tell you about will have to wait until next week. We don't need to dwell on it or anything, but I forgot I wanted to tell you about them until after I mashed them all for bean dip, which is not very photogenic.

I am down to the last of the luscious lemons in my lemon care package. Here are a couple of blisteringly hot updates on the lemon curd issue, and that will have to be it for today. Gotta bake.

First, go ahead and make that lemon curd, but add a teaspoon of grated fresh ginger root to the pot, and then after straining it, a fat pinch of saffron threads that you crush as you sprinkle them in. If there is a more sensuous thing you can do in the kitchen in under 30 seconds than to crush a pinch of saffron threads, I want to hear about it--but maybe offline so we don't get in any trouble with the FCC.

Second, try a little raspberry curd if you feel all this lemon activity is not for you. The particulars are below. I am planning to deploy it in this super successful buttercream later on, if I don't eat it all first, but it would be comfortable dressing up a nice plain cake or scone or meringue or some ice cream, and like its lemony cousin, can be folded into some whipped cream if you are in the mood for some mousse.

raspberry lime curd

4 eggs
1 c sugar
10 oz bag frozen raspberries
1/4 c fresh lime juice
2t grated lime zest
1 stick of unsalted butter, cut in 1" chunks

Have ready a fine mesh strainer and a bowl it rests comfortably on.

Stir the eggs and sugar together in a medium size, heavy saucepan. Add the remaining ingredients to the pot and combine. Set over a medium flame and cook, stirring, until the mixture thickens, lowering the heat as necessary to avoid a hard boil and maintain a slow simmer. When the curd is nicely thickened (about five minutes at the simmer), dump the mixture into the strainer and use a spatula to force as much curd out from the seeds and other solids as you can. Cover and refrigerate until cool; when it cools, it will thicken quite a bit.