This Quick & Easy Peach Curd is smooth, delicious and packed with peach flavour. It’s also fool proof and impossible to curdle with my super simple and fast method. With no double boilers or 30 minutes of stirring needed, you’ll love this peachy twist on classic lemon curd.
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I’ve been making homemade lemon curd for years and have occasionally mixed it up with lime or another citrus. But I was always a little scared of making curds from fruits where I needed to use the whole fruit rather than just some potent juice and/or zest. But I have cracked it.
Anyone who has been around here long enough will know that my obsession with peaches is long and enduring. I use them for everything from boozy compotes to fresh savoury salsas and fruit crumbles. So peach curd was the obvious place for me to start! And wow, honestly, I nailed it first time.
I started out by looking at a few recipes but none of them really spoke to me. I’m no sugar dodger but using 4 cups of sugar for 3 peaches in one recipe seemed a bit crazy! So I started from scratch.
How exactly is this Peach Curd Quick and Easy?
I was also interested in the methods and timings in my research phase. Most recipes call for pureeing the peaches from raw and then starting to make the curd.
But here in the UK, my imported peaches aren’t terribly soft and yielding so I was really worried about them being diced into tiny pieces rather than blending into a smooth puree. So I decided to cook and soften them first.
And then many recipes called for the curd mixture to be cooked at glacial pace over a double boiler (in a bowl balanced over a pan of boiling water). I hate cooking over a double boiler – they are so easy to tip over. And I have always made lemon curd directly in the saucepan.
The double boiler method can take up to 30 or 40 minutes of constant stirring. I think all of our lives are too short for that. My direct heat method takes less than 10 minutes. Maybe just 6 or 7 if you are confident.
You do need to be careful with this method. You cannot walk away from the pan and you need to keep a keen eye on the level of heat. You also need to keep scraping away at the bottom and sides of the pan with your spatula.
And Its Foolproof too?
I have also said that this recipe is foolproof. And that’s because I have taken advantage of giving the peaches a little heat at the beginning of the recipe. By melting in the sugar and butter before blending, this reduces any chance of the mixture splitting.
Blending in the eggs also removes any chance of the eggs from curdling. Little pieces of uncooked egg white is the most common issue when making fruit curds. So you don’t have to worry about that with my recipe. And you aren’t going to need to strain it again once cooked.
How to Serve Fruit Curd
As with most things that should be kept in the fridge, curds are really best once brought back up to room temp. Or at least left out long enough for the chill to go. When cold the flavour can be dulled.
However you also do not want to heat it or leave it out for a long time on a very warm day as it will go very runny and fall right off your scone! Unless using in a recipe that asks you to heat it of course .
Make Peach Curd into a Feast
I truly believe that you can make any dish into a proper feast! Whether thats a feast for one after work on a Tuesday, a casual feast for four on a Friday evening or a feast for 12 for a special occasion!
My favourite way to use Peach Curd, or any curd for that matter is to make tarts. Check out my Peach Curd Tarts post for the full how to guide.
Don’t forget to head over to my Feast Collection pages to find all of my tips and tricks to help you host a fun and stress-free feast. Plus remember to check out my recipe index to create your own awesome Feast!
Ingredients for Peach Curd
Peaches
You can use any peaches you like. Soft, yielding and ripe are the best. Yellow and white peaches are as good as each other but obviously the finished colour of the curd will be a little lighter/darker accordingly. Flat peaches and even nectarines are also great to use.
The recipe is flexible and not all peaches are created equal in size which is why I’ve specified a weight of peaches rather than a number. Please note the the weight is measured after the flesh is cut from the stone. The stone sizes also vary wildly.
I have not yet tested the recipe using tinned (canned) peaches but I cannot fathom any reason why the recipe wouldn’t work. I would heat them but they won’t need cooking down at all like fresh peaches do. You can sub the water in the recipe for juice from the tin.
Butter
I only use salted butter. I ideally like to make my own Homemade Butter but I do just buy it too! The important things are that you use proper butter and not margarine. If you use a substitute the curd might not set properly.
Equally if you have to use unsalted butter, please add in some salt along with the butter.
Sugar
White sugar in best in this recipe. Caster/superfine or granulated is great. Confectioners /icing sugar cannot be directly substituted due to the differing weights. Brown sugar will add an overwhelming and unwelcome flavour so please avoid this too.
Eggs
If you buy eggs with super yellow yolks, this will give your curd a lovely bright colour. But it really doesn’t matter!
I used UK large sized eggs in this recipe. This would be the preference. If you use smaller eggs, the curd will set less firm. Larger eggs may result in a firmer set. XL eggs should be avoided – you don’t want the curd to actually taste of egg.
Lemon Juice
Use fresh or bottled, whatever you have on hand. Although fresh squeezed lemon juice will give a slightly brighter flavour.
Be Flexible
In theory this method of making curd will work with any fruit where the whole fruit can be used. So other stone fruits like apricots are ideal candidates. As are berries like strawberry or blackberry.
Plums are such a great option that I created a recipe specifically for them And I’ve also make a fabulous fig version to – perfect for the autumn/fall season.
Making a traditional citrus curd or using another fruit like passion fruit where the whole fruit isn’t used will require a whole other ratio of ingredients. So please don’t try to adapt this recipe for lemon, lime or orange, etc.
Instead, head over to my Quick & Easy Clementine Curd recipe for all the details on making a citrus juice based curd.
But you do need to be careful experimenting. You need to consider the sweetness of the fruit you are using and the water content. And then adjust the sugar and the added water carefully.
For a more subtle variation, you can consider adding in other flavours. You can switch all or some of the water for a spirit like rum (yum) or add in another flavour like ginger. Peach and ginger is actually one of my favourite flavour combos like in this compote or crumble.
Is Peach Curd Vegetarian or Vegan?
This peach curd recipe is suitable for vegetarians. But it is not a vegan peach curd. And adapting it is really quite tricky. I would actually recommend seeking out a dedicated vegan curd recipe. Sorry to not be more helpful!
Make Peach Curd Allergy Friendly
This recipe is free from gluten and nuts.
Dairy Free: To make dairy-free peach curd you will need to switch the salted butter for a dairy free substitute. You will need to use a sub which is a hard block and not a margarine or the curd may not set.
Egg Free: I’ve mentioned above that this isn’t a good recipe to veganise. And that is because the eggs are crucial to this recipe. I would recommend seeking out a dedicated egg-free recipe if needed.
Please note that this recipe may contain other allergens not referred to above and any variations suggested have not been tested unless otherwise stated. For more information regarding any dietary information provided on this website, please refer to my Nutritional Disclaimer.
Equipment Notes for Easy Peach Curd
There are a couple of items of equipment that you need to make this smooth peach curd.
You absolutely need some kind of blender. My preferred type for this kind of job is a stick blender. It creates minimal washing up, minimal waste and you can really see what you are blending.
If you don’t have one, you can of course use any electric blender – just make sure to scrape it out really well with a silicone spatula.
The other true essential is a good fine sieve. This is essential to both remove any of the peach skin and make sure the mixture is super smooth before it is thickened.
You can store the finished curd in any airtight container you like, you do not need to use jars. But if you do have jar envy, these are like the quilted jam jars I use!
A comprehensive list of the equipment used to make this recipe is included in the main recipe card below. Click on any item to see an example. There are no hard and fast rules so many items can be sensibly substituted to achieve the same results.
Get Ahead
This peach curd will store in the fridge in an airtight container for a couple of weeks.
I haven’t tried freezing it but I have a feeling it may split. I also have a feeling that a quick blast with a blender would bring it back to life. But I haven’t tested this out – let me know if you try!
Peach Curd Tips
If your peaches are especially juicy, you might want to reduce the added water a little.
Once you add the eggs to the mixture, make sure to not delay the next stage of blending. I’ve not had any issue with adding the eggs to a relatively hot mixture. But letting them sit will allow them to start cooking.
If you do find that the mixture breaks or splits during the final heating and thickening stage, simply give it another blitz with the blender. It should come back together perfectly.
Fruit Curds – Hints, Tips & FAQs
For more help and information about making any flavour fruit curd, head over to my fruit curds FAQs post.
Still Have Questions?
Simple! Just contact me and I will do my best to help as quickly as I am able. Head over to my Contact Me page, any of my social media channels or post a comment at the bottom of this page and I’ll see what I can do.
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The Recipe
Quick & Easy Peach Curd Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
- 300 g Fresh Peaches - 75g = roughly 1 Peach
- 100 ml Water
- 100 g Salted Butter
- 175 g Sugar
- 2 tbsp Lemon Juice
- 4 Eggs
Instructions
- Remove the stone and chop 300g Fresh Peaches. You do want this weight to be after they have been destoned. You do not need to peel the peaches.
- Add the chopped peaches to a medium saucepan along with 100ml Water. Cook the peaches over a medium heat until the pieces are soft enough to easily squash with a spatula – around 5 minutes.
- Add 100g Salted Butter, 175g Sugar and 2 tbsp Lemon Juice to the peaches.
- Continue to stir over the heat until the sugar and butter have melted – around 1 to 2 minutes.
- Pour the mixture into a large jug or blender jug ready to puree.
- Use a stick blender or regular blender to puree the peach mixture until it is as smooth as possible.
- Add 4 Eggs and blend again until everything is incorporated.
- Strain the mixture back into the saucepan. This will remove the remaining pieces of peach skin.
- Stir the mix over the heat until it has thickened. You can raise the heat a little at the beginning to get the heat up. And you can continue to adjust the heat so that the mixture is no hotter than a very light simmer. If you are underconfident, keep the heat low – it will just take longer to thicken. Keep stirring and make sure to keep scraping along the bottom of the pan. Do not walk away or take your eyes of the pan.
- The curd is ready once it coats the back of a spoon or spatula. This should take no more than 8 to 10 minutes. You will know it is ready when it stops getting any thicker.
- Take the curd off the heat and pour into jars or storage containers.
Madelyn says
This is amazing!! I had a few peaches left over from a recent trip to the peach orchard and was looking for a way to use them up. This was perfect! I used it on top of peach cobbler with whipped cream. Lots of fresh peach flavor and very easy to make.
Chloe says
On top of a cobbler is genius!
Normand J Cullerton says
I love this recipe. You can pretty much curd anything! LOL, but I’m glad I found your instructions. Peach is such a hard flavor to cook with, and I’m making my mother-in-law a Multi layer Peach cake for her 70th. I was looking to boost the flavor, and after debating on Peach preserves, or peach compote, I really like the Peach curd Idea.
I did cheat a bit, and added some orange food color, and a drop of peach extract to Punch up the Peach Pleasure! All in all, it should be a perfectly Peachy cake! Thank you!
Chloe says
I’ll tell you now, not quite everything curds, I’ve had some humdinger recipe testing days – for some reason cherries do not curd although I’m definitely going to try again because I have ideas and I hate being beaten. Rhubarb comes out the most vile colour too! Peach however is delicious and that cake sounds absolutely amazing!! You’re a lovely son in law to make that and I hope you all have a wonderful celebration!
Pamela says
Great recipe even for canned peaches! Fresh peaches are out of season this time of year so I had to use canned. I was worried about the sweetness of the syrup with the added sugar so I rinsed them off. I also used some peach juice instead of water.
Since I don’t have a blender I used my food processor to puree and then dropped one egg in at a time. It came out so smooth that I didn’t have to strain it at all. I cooked as instructed and it came out perfect! Looked just like yours in the photo. The flavor develops and the curd gets thicker once it’s cooled. I can’t wait to use fresh peaches.
I also plan on using this as a cupcake filling. Thank you for your wonderful recipe!
Chloe says
Aw brilliant, I’m so pleased it worked so well for you and thanks for sharing how you switched it up – great to know the processor worked too 🙂
vicky says
i froze a jar of it. defrosted just fine!
Chloe says
Fabulous! Thanks for taking one for the team and trying it – And for letting me know! 🙂
Joy C says
You actually add the whole eggs not just the egg yolks? Peach curd sounds so very yummy & I have some just waiting on me to make them into peach curd!
Chloe says
Yup! I wanted to create a recipe where I didn’t waste any egg 😁
Mary says
I used only the yolks because I didn’t read the recipe that closely and was using the whites for a meringue roulade anyway. I’ve made this recipe several times this way and absolutely love it. So I guess either way works. :D.
Chloe says
OOOh yes, I imagine it just made it richer and a little more dense in texture. Super delicious!
Katarina says
Oh, haha. This answers the question I just asked above. Okay! Trying it this weekend. 🙂
(Question was – Will it work with yolks only, as well? I’d love to use this as a filling for a peach pavlova, which will use up all the whites.)
Andrea says
I also want to use just yolks, maybe it would be fine to use more eggs than?
Brooke says
Hi there! I’m new to making curds but I made a lemon one last night that was delicious. That recipe called for only egg yolks. I was wondering what the difference is and why your recipe calls for whole eggs? I am wanting to make this peach curd for my peaches and cream cupcake filling!! I’m very excited to try it!
Chloe says
I use whole eggs because I didn’t want to end up with wasted eggs yolks so I developed this recipe to be low waste and super simple!
Lisa Madden says
YES YES YES. YES. So so good. Used frozen peaches from our trees. Cooked them with the sugar and butter and no water. Pureed them with an immersion blender then added the eggs. Did not sieve out any skin. It was not really apparent plus, it has FLAVOR. The result was a mustard color cloud of peachiness that set up in the fridge, but just barely. I estimated measurements and risked using as little sugar as possible because these girls were sweeeeeeet right off the tree. Due to my heretical proportions the texture was not traditional. And yet it was well behaved, stayed where it was spooned and had intense peach flavor. It’s too good to share. Im hiding it in the back of the fridge.
Chloe says
Oh I love this, absolutely made my day! I’m so pleased you loved it!
Helen says
You have officially converted this jam lover to curds! Is there anything you can’t curd?
Chloe says
Ha fab! And yes, cherries – just can’t crack it!
Samantha says
Wow wow wow!! I needed a peach cupcake filling, and your recipe looked promising – especially with my previous less-than-stellar results … and WOW did this deliver! It’s so good I had to comment right away to thank you (it’s almost 11pm!).
I used local Okanagan peaches – very firm, so I simmered the first step a lot longer, in a mix of amaretto and water and a splash of bourbon vanilla. (Bonus: my apartment smells amazing!)
As the final colour was a little pale, I added a drop of colouring just for visual punch against the white cupcakes.
I am SO impressed – THANK YOU for sharing this brilliant method!
(You can be sure I’ll be grabbing the last of the plums off my sister’s tree after I deliver the cupcakes so I can try the plum version!!)
Samantha says
(Edit: I meant previous experience with lemon curd recipes that took an hour!)
Chloe says
Aww, that was the most lovely comment to wake up to, thank you so much for taking the time to comment even if it was super late, comments like this mean the world to content creators like me. And I’m so pleased the recipe worked so well for you, the addition of booze is wholeheartedly approved. And actually a little colouring is a great idea too! I can’t wait to hear what you think of the plum version, it is soooooooo good, I 1000% convinced you wont be dissapointed!
MARIA WEXLER says
I will be using this as a ribbon in my fresh peach ice cream. I’ve pre-made it and it tastes delicious! Just wondering what your thoughts are on freezing any extra of the curd. Thank you!!!
Chloe says
Ohfab, I’m so pleased you’re loving it as much as me – I bet your ice cream is going to be amazing! I’ve not tried freezing the curd on its own but I think its worth a try. I think that it could split when being defrosted but a quick blitz with the stick blender and I have a feeling it would come back together. Hope you enjoy x
Lauren says
What an easy to follow and yummy recipe! I’ve never made curd before and this was SO easy I can’t wait to try it with a few different fruits! Thankyou so much!
Jade says
Mine ended up with like an apple sauce texture. Any idea what I did wrong?
Chloe says
Hi Jade, I’m afraid that without having seen what you did, its impossible to say but apple sauce is definitely not ok assuming you’re saying its lumpy? I mention that if the mix does split at any point that you can blitz it in the blender again – that might help perhaps?
Jen says
It’s currently the height of peach season, and I got some really delicious tree-ripened peaches from my local farmer’s market. Since I had many peaches, I decided to try this recipe. I made no changes to the recipe as written. The end result was sweet, tangy butter that had the texture of fruit curd. There was no peach flavor at all! I was pretty sad that the beautiful peach flavor was completely lost to the overwhelming butter flavor.
Chloe says
Hi Jen, sorry to hear this – it sounds like you’ve used a very strong flavoured butter. I’ve checked your IP address and it looks like you’re in North America. I know that there is a prevalence of strong cultured butters like Kerrygold. Something that strong tasting will of course unfortunately overpower a subtle peach flavour. As this recipe is tested here in the UK using UK ingredients, I can only suggest that if you try again using a european style non-cultured butter, you may well find that you get a better end result. Good luck!
Sally B. says
Hi Chloe,
Have you tried canning/preserving the peach curd for longer shelf life? If not, what are your thoughts?
Chloe says
Hi Sally, no I haven’t tried – it never really lasts long enough in my house to bother if I’m honest. I’ve read accounts of curd not preserving terribly well because of the eggs involved although I’m not overly convinced that is an issue – we can buy plenty of shelf stable curds right? But then maybe they contain preservatives that we don’t add in homemade versions. I’d say its worth trying with a small batch and then if it works, go to town next time!
Sandy says
I would like to know about canning and how it keeps.
Chloe says
Me too, if you find out, cam you please let me know?!
Zoe says
Followed the instructions to work quickly and it turned out perfectly. My peaches were fairly mild in flavour, so the curd wasn’t overly peachy – but still delicious. Was a big hit with my pavlova.
Chloe says
Fab! Yes, the flavour of the peach can be on the mild side but I’ve found a few times that over the next couple of days, the flavour has matured a little. I’m so pleased you enjoyed your pavlova, it sounds like the perfect use!
Cindy says
I made this exactly as instructions said but it was grainy in appearance. What I would call broken. The taste was delicious, it just didn’t look like your picture. Should the mixture cool be for adding the eggs?
Chloe says
Hi Cindy,
I’m really sorry to hear that your peach curd split. I really thought I’d made the recipe pretty foolproof with having everything blended before cooking and thickening but there must be some variable that I hadn’t come across.
I added the eggs to my curd when everything was quite hot so unless you added them and didn’t blend asap, that shouldn’t in theory be the issue. I did do a recipe test with another fruit which was much juicer this morning and that looked like it split a bit. I wonder if your peaches were especially soft and juicy?
Whatever happened, if you give the finished curd another blitz with the blender, it should come back together and be smooth, even if it is now cold. I hope that helps, and thanks for letting me know you had an issue, it means that I can do some more testing 🙂
Chloe x
Eb Gargano | Easy Peasy Foodie says
Wow – I’ve never even heard of peach curd before… but I love the idea! And especially how easy peasy the recipe is 😀
jo says
What a great idea – love peaches and curds so this is a winner for me. Will definitely make this over the summer – thanks for posting.
Kat (The Baking Explorer) says
I’ve never even heard of peach curd but now I want to try it!!
Corina Blum says
I’ve never made a curd but this sounds fantastic and would be so versatile. I also love peaches but rarely do anything with them apart from eating them raw!
Jacqui Bellefontaine says
I love fruit curds and this would make a delicious filling for a summer Victoria sandwich cake
Karen Burns-Booth says
YESSSS please Chloe! I ADORE fruit curds and this peach curd sounds bloody lush!
Janice says
I totally love curd, and Peach Curd sound like the perfect preserve to include in summer desserts. Such an easy recipe and thanks for the excellent step-by -step instructions.
Cat says
What a fantastic idea! I’ve never heard of peach curd before and it sounds super delicious! I love peaches and can’t wait to try this.
Chloe says
No I’ve never seen it either!
Lesley says
I love peaches and I love a fresh fruit curd so this is a winner for me. Super simple recipe instruction too.
Chloe says
Thanks leslie, I’m absolutely stoked how well this came out! I think you’ll love it!