Dairy-Free – and Easy! – Keto Lemon Curd + Unique Giveaway

Regular lemon curd has an ample amount of sugar and butter. For keto lemon curd, sugar is easy to replace with a natural sweetener like in this very old recipe of mine. But how to replace butter in case you want to avoid dairy? Read on to find a beyond-belief-easy recipe for rich and luscious keto lemon curd without dairy!

P.S. Scroll down for an exciting giveaway where you have a possibility to win our unique, brand new Ketokamu keto chocolate treats straight from Finland!

How to make this Dairy-Free and Easy Keto Lemon Curd

Making this lemon curd is super simple: just combine all ingredients in a saucepan, heat over high heat while constantly mixing until thick – and that’s it!

One simple piece of advice, though: When heating the mixture, be sure to whisk it all the time along the bottom of the saucepan to ensure a smooth consistency. And, related to smooth consistency, remove the saucepan from the heat immediately when you see the first bubbles, i.e., when the curd has reached the boiling point.

This keto lemon curd is tart rather than sweet. Although I don’t encourage you to favor overly sweet flavors, feel free to add some natural sweetener, like powdered erythritol, stevia, or monk fruit if you want a sweeter smack.

That’s it; no gimmicks needed. So, let’s take a look at how to make this tasty and tart keto lemon curd:

Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan, so 1/2 cup (120 ml) freshly-squeezed lemon juice from organic lemons…

…3 organic free-range eggs…

…1/2 cup (120 ml), or to taste, powdered erythritol…

…1/4 cup (60 ml, about 35 grams) cocoa butter…

…and 1/4 cup (60 ml, about 40 grams) coconut manna, i.e., pureed coconut flesh.

Heat over high heat, whisking all the time…

…whisking all the time…

…until the mixture is thick and you see the first bubbles. Remove the saucepan immediately from the heat.

Let cool until room temperature, and then refrigerate until cold.

Ready!

Use in various ways: as a spread, in yogurt, or desserts like this 5-Ingredient Keto Lemon Curd Pavlova that is perfect for Easter.

Personally, I prefer to fill small tartlets with lemon curd. So pretty – and so delicious!

 

How I came up with this dairy-free keto lemon curd recipe

Usually, while making lemon curd, you use only the yolks. However, I noticed almost 10 years ago that this is not necessary: you can use whole eggs and get as good — or even better — result. For years, I’ve used the simple recipe I’ve developed for making keto — or low-carb — lemon curd.

For some time, though, I’ve wondered if it’s possible to make dairy-free lemon curd. The thing is that the traditional lemon curd contains butter, and so many people don’t tolerate dairy. They would really benefit from dairy-free lemon curd!

I wrote down some ideas on how to replace butter. Some options would be cocoa butter, coconut oil, or coconut manna. I didn’t have any clue how much of those I should use to replace butter. In my original recipe, I use 3.5 oz (100 g) butter, but I was expecting I need a little less of the dairy-free options.

Moreover, I thought using only one of the dairy-free options wouldn’t bring optimum result. For example, if I used only cocoa butter, the result might turn out too thin flavor-wise. Therefore, I thought a combination of maybe two butter replacements would bring the best result.

I decided to try two experiments: one with a combination of cocoa butter and coconut manna and one with a combination of cocoa butter and coconut oil. Again, I didn’t have any clue how much of those I should use, and in what ratio, so I just decided to use my gut feeling and educated guess.

I took my basic recipe and used it as a base for my non-dairy version. However, instead of erythritol crystals, I wanted to use powdered erythritol as it dissolves much better and is smoother in cold desserts. The thing is that at the time I created my basic low-carb lemon curd recipe, there was no powdered erythritol available, it’s so old! Nowadays, I make my own powdered erythritol using a powerful blender (and now you wonder why I didn’t use it when I created the old lemon curd recipe… well, it’s because I didn’t have any powerful blender at that time!)

So, I took 1/2 cup (120 ml) freshly-squeezed lemon juice, 3 (large) eggs, and 1/2 cup (120 ml) powdered erythritol. My original recipe used 1/2 cup (120 ml) erythritol crystals that weigh more than powdered erythritol. Well, I didn’t mind using less erythritol because I wanted to make a bit more tart version as my mission is to wean off people — including myself — from unnaturally sweet flavors — the same I do with our Ketokamu products.

For the first experiment, I replaced butter with 1/4 cup (60 ml, about 35 g) cocoa butter and 1/4 cup (60 ml, about 40 g) coconut manna. I combined all ingredients in a saucepan, heated over high heat, mixing all the time until the mixture was thick.

While my first experiment was cooling, I did another experiment, but this time I replaced the coconut manna with an equal amount of extra-virgin coconut oil.

To my surprise, both of the test batches looked — and tasted! — perfect when they were hot. The consistency was exactly like in the buttery version! I couldn’t say which of my experiments I preferred, the coconut manna version or the coconut oil version, as they both looked good. Well, maybe the coconut manna version was richer and more buttery. As I’m not a big fan of the taste of coconut oil, the coconut manna version was my personal favorite.

I stored half of both test batches in the fridge overnight and half of the batches at room temperature to see how the consistency looks and if it will change — for example, it might separate.

The next day, I took all the test batches and excitedly started examining them. Here they are:

All of them looked and tasted superb, also those which had stayed at room temperature overnight. Naturally, the refrigerated versions were better (and you definitely should store the lemon curd in the fridge!), as the consistency was nicely stiff and curd-like but not too stiff. It was just perfect!

After a long pondering, I decided that the version with coconut manna was the winner. I really liked the rich, buttery mouthfeel and the tart, slightly sweet taste. To be honest, this dairy-free version tasted even better than my buttery version!

Here’s the recipe for you to enjoy:

 
 

Nutrition information	In total	Per serving if 12 servings in total
Protein	24.8 g	2.1 g
Fat	77.1 g	6.4 g
Net carbs	5.0 g	0.4 g
kcal	831 kcal	69 kcal

 

Tips for variation

Instead of coconut manna, you can use extra-virgin coconut oil. It also makes a delicious dairy-free lemon curd.

For lime curd, replace the lemon juice simply with freshly-squeezed lime juice.

A splash of vanilla extract lends elegant vanilla flavor to the lemon curd. You can also use vanilla stevia either in addition to erythritol or sweeten your lemon curd only with (vanilla) stevia. For exciting variations, try other stevia flavors as well, like berry stevia, coconut stevia, lemon stevia, orange stevia, toffee stevia, among others.

For a warming and spicy twist, add finely grated ginger — or better, a dash of fresh ginger juice — to the curd.

General prattling

Yet another busy week has passed. We have been super-occupied with our Ketokamu chocolate treats that we just launched. On Monday, I was here in Tampere at Ruohonjuuri store to let people taste our brand new treats.

I was surprised how much people have liked these revolutionary treats. Why are they revolutionary? –Because they are not very sweet! The problem is that all — I mean all — sugar-free erythritol- or stevia-sweetened chocolate products that are on the market are unnaturally sweet.

That’s why we wanted to create not-that-sweet but only slightly sweet chocolate treats that please the palate without tasting overly sweet but still are flavorful.

I also sent packages to many influencers during the week. Those packages contained all our chocolatey Ketokamu treats and my new Finnish keto book.

As there are currently only a very few stores that sell our chocolate treats, we opened our Ketokamu online store on Monday so that people all over Finland can order our chocolatey keto treats even to their home door. Well, we had lots of challenges in the procedures and processes related to opening and running an online store.

Moreover, the manufacturer of our products was so busy with packing and sending their own orders (because they had changed their whole system and tried to get it running smoothly) that packing of our products was going to be delayed, so I went to their premises yesterday and packed about 100 orders of our Ketokamu treats to ensure the customers will get their orders in time.

For each order, I had written a small note by hand.

 

The Unique Giveaway!

And finally, it’s time for the giveaway! (Drumroll here!) Now, you will have a chance to win a nice batch of our brand new Ketokamu chocolate treats: 1 bag of keto chocolate-covered strawberries, 1 bag of keto chocolate-covered raspberries, 1 bag of keto chocolate-covered toasted hazelnuts, 1 bag of keto chocolate-covered macadamias (with a hint of sea salt!), 1 jar of Ketolla (nut and chocolate spread), and a unique Ketokamu bag! I’ve developed the recipes for all these treats.

The giveaway rules: comment below what is your favorite keto treat you could eat every day. That’s it!

The winner is randomly chosen next Saturday (20th March 2021) and will get an email for further instructions on claiming the prize.

~Good luck!~