The Custard Challenge

Custard is one of those basic things that’s really useful to be able to make. I know these days, most people think of custard as that yellow powder that comes out of those blue and red Bird’s Custard tins, right? But I think that’s such a shame because that’s not how it should be. I think everybody should try making custard from scratch, at least once because:

• It tastes better… I think this is true about most home-made things and custard’s definitely one of them. Let’s be honest, how can egg custard taste like egg custard when there’s no egg in it?
• It’s better for you… Again, true of most things you make yourself and certainly true for custard. In custard powder, there’s; salt, cornflour, flavouring and colouring so not only are you eating stuff that should not be in custard, you’re not getting any of the goodness from the eggs.
• It’s easy… I think custard’s  one of those things that people are under the impressions is super hard to make, will take hours and should only be made by professional chefs but none of those things are true. It takes about two minutes longer than it does to make it with powder and it’s not that hard, mine worked when I made it the for the first time when I was about ten and we now have a redundant tin of powder lurking in the back of our cupboards, I promise, once you’ve made it once, there’ll be no turning back.

One other thing that I think puts people off is having whites left over from the eggs you use for it but I’ll be posting some recipes in the coming days/weeks to use those up and solve that problem so, keep an eye out (Or subscribe to receive e-mail updates about new posts on the right hand side of the blog).

With the summer just around the corner (We hope!) I’ve also got tonnes of ice-cream recipes that use this same basic custard recipe coming soon too but for now, take the custard challenge, have a go at making it and see for yourself how easy and delicious it is…

Ingredients

4 egg yolks

300 ml milk *

75g caster sugar

Optional: Vanilla pod, a little grated nutmeg or ground cinnamon

1. 1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar together until smooth and well mixed.
2. Put the milk in a heavy based saucepan and heat gradually- if you put it on a high heat straight away the milk will burn on the bottom of the pan an it is not fun to wash up!- until almost at the boil, don’t let it boil though! (If you’re using vanilla, split the pod, take out the seeds and the pod and seeds to the milk before you heat it. Remove the pod before step 3)
3. Pour the milk over the egg mixture, stirring well.
4. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan- it must be clean so it there’s some milk that’s cooked slightly or burnt on the bottom then use a clean one.
5. Cook over a gentle heat, stirring continuously with a wooden spoon until  the mixture has thickened will coat the back of a spoon. If you prefer it thicker, continue cooking it to your preferred consistency but do not let it boil or it will become lumpy. (Add the cinnamon or nutmeg).
6. Enjoy on your favourite dessert, cake, on it’s own or use to make ice cream (If you’re making ice cream, transfer to a bowl and leave to cool slightly at this point), Creme Brulee, Queen of Puddings or one of the many other recipes using custard! 

LG x

*Whole is best but I’ve made it with semi and skimmed milk and it’s fine, it will  come out a little thinner so if you want a ticker constancy I’d suggest you use about 275ml semi-skimmed of 250ml skimmed.