Lemon curd substitutes

The real thing, in fifteen minutes over a low heat or a pan of barely simmering water.

Best for

lemon tart and lemon meringue pie, Victoria sponge and Swiss roll fillings, pavlova and meringue nests, scones and toast, folding into whipped cream for a lemon posset-style fool

3 egg yolks (or 2 whole eggs for a slightly softer set), ½ cup sugar, zest and juice of 2 lemons (about 1/3 cup juice), 4 tbsp butter, pinch of salt. Whisk constantly over low heat for 8 to 10 minutes until it thickly coats a spoon and holds a line when you draw a finger through it, then strain and chill. It thickens substantially as it cools, so stop while it still looks slightly too loose.

Any other citrus or tropical fruit curd, made or bought, using exactly the same egg-and-butter structure.

Best for

tarts and pies, cake fillings, pavlova, trifle

The set and the richness are identical, so nothing structural changes. Passion fruit is the best of them in a tart, more perfumed and arguably better than lemon. Lime is sharper and greener. Orange and grapefruit curds are much sweeter and softer set because the juice is less acidic, so add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice per cup or the filling tastes flat and cloying and never quite firms.

Beat ½ cup mascarpone or full-fat cream cheese with 2 tbsp icing sugar, the zest of a lemon and 1 tbsp lemon juice.

Best for

Victoria sponge and layer cakes, trifle, cupcake fillings, spreading on scones

Genuinely excellent, and it holds a piped shape better than curd, which slumps. It has the fat and the acid, so it does two of curd's three jobs properly. What differs is flavour: it reads as creamy and dairy-forward rather than bright and puckering, and it is less sharp. Add more juice a teaspoon at a time and stop the moment it starts to loosen, because too much liquid will split mascarpone into a grainy mess.

The cold five-minute option, best with apricot, peach or lemon marmalade.

Best for

sponge cake fillings, thumbprint and jammy biscuits, swirling into yogurt or a crumble

Fine as a filling and completely wrong as a tart. It gives you sweetness and, once you add the lemon, acid, but there is no fat and no egg set, so it stays loose and syrupy and will soak into a sponge and squeeze out of the sides. Use it only where the curd is a spread or a filling sandwiched between something solid, never where it has to hold up as the body of a pie. It tastes sweeter and considerably less rich.

The cornflour-set boxed mix, cooked with less liquid than the packet suggests.

Best for

lemon meringue pie, trifle, between sponge layers

Structurally it works: cornflour sets firmly and will hold a slice, sometimes better than curd. The differences are texture and flavour. Starch-set fillings are bouncier and slightly gelatinous rather than silky and dense, and they taste of lemon flavouring rather than of zest, so there is a synthetic edge that shows badly on toast and hides fine under meringue. Use about three quarters of the liquid on the packet to get curd-like thickness.

The no-cook cupboard trick: the acid thickens the milk on contact within minutes.

Best for

no-bake lemon tarts on a biscuit base, lemon icebox pie, quick fridge desserts

Sets remarkably firmly with no cooking at all, which makes it genuinely useful for a no-bake tart on a crumb base. But it is very sweet and distinctly milky, closer to a lemon fudge than to curd, and it lacks the glossy translucency and the tartness. Not something you would spread on a scone. Push the lemon juice to a third of a cup if you can bear it, because the sweetness needs fighting.