How to approach making fruit custards?

Question

I've recently enjoyed finally being able to reliably make lemon curd. Now I'm wondering: is there a way to use different fruit as the flavour?

Is there anything special about lemon that makes it uniquely suitable for this that couldn't be achieved with other fruits? The fact it only adds a small amount of liquid, or maybe the high acidity offsets that? My first idea was trying raspberries reduced as much as possible without burning, and maybe adding some lemon juice to brighten up the flavour and add acid.

As a baseline, the recipe I use for the lemon curd is:

• 2 eggs and 2 yolks
• 200g (1 cup) sugar
• 125g (1 stick) butter
• juice of 2 lemons, zest of 1-2 (to taste)

Answer 1

I think you're on the right track. Curds exist with many fruits, but the most common are all very strongly flavored (citrus, raspberry, cranberry, etc). As long as you use a fruit that will add a lot of flavor before adding too much liquid (or reduce the liquid out), you should be fine.

Answer 2

You need a certain amount of acid to thicken the curd. You may have success with raspberry puree, but I would think blueberries, strawberries, and stone fruits will fail to set.