Half term baking: Ginger curd

I'm running a revision session at school this Sunday. This is not as crazy as it sounds, since (a) our first exam is on Monday and (b) I work every Sunday afternoon anyway, so I might as well do it in school. I'm making some cakes to take in the keep their spirits up. This is mainly an excuse to make cakes, if I'm honest: there hasn't been a lot of cake-making going on lately.

I saw some ginger curd in the National Trust shop at Dyrham Park at the weekend and thought that it would be excellent in a lemon drizzle, so I set about making some of my own. I have cobbled this recipe together by firstly, reading about how other people prepare their ginger for curding, and secondly, adapting the recipe I always use for lemon curd. It has come out very nicely.

150g fresh ginger (weight after peeling)
2 lemons
250g caster sugar
125g butter
5 eggs

The absolute easiest way to sort out the ginger is to run it through a juicer, along with the lemons. When I did this I ended up with something approaching 200ml, including the frothy layer that forms on top. Alternatively you could cut the ginger up and put it in a blender with the peeled lemons, and then press the resulting paste through a sieve. You'll probably get a bit less juice doing it this way, so you can either blend more ginger/lemons or adjust the proportions of the other ingredients down.

Put the juice in a glass bowl with all the other ingredients. Set it over a pan of simmering water and stir periodically, until the butter and sugar have melted and the curd has thickened. Pour into pots. Do not let Mr Z near it unless you're willing for a lot of it to be spooned into his mouth.

My batch isn't super thick; it probably could have taken another egg. Also, it's not massively sweet, as was my wont. I recommend tasting yours to see if you want more sugar.

One recipe I read suggested finely chopping some stem ginger to stir through the finished article, which I think sounds delightful. However, the thought of trying to finely chop those balls of ultimate stickiness is not filling me with delight, so I'm giving it a miss.