Custard
A big theme – there are so many different variations of even basic custard. Obviously, custard is always made with milk, cream, yolk – but there are huge variations in the relative amounts of ingredients. In addition, there are two fractions of custard producers: those who take the purist’s approach (including me) and those who use a little bit of cornflour in their custard recipe…
Custards do not have to be sweet and can be prepared in many different savoury versions (completely omitting sugar) just as well as the classical sweet custard. A classical sweet custard should be flavoured with a real vanilla pod rather than artificial vanilla flavouring, it makes a huge difference in taste.
The preparation method is always the same:
Split vanilla pod, scrape seeds into milk/cream, add pod. Heat milk/cream/vanilla (or other flavouring) nearly to boiling point, remove vanilla pod (or similar). In a bowl briefly whisk the yolks (plus sugar and corn flour (if used)), then slowly pour the hot milk/cream over the yolks while stirring. Pour mixture into a clean saucepan and heat over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture starts to thicken and coats the back of a spoon. Remove from heat, pass through a sieve. Serve hot or lukewarm, or cold (will last in the fridge for a couple of days).
A few different versions of classical vanilla custard, with quite a variation of ingredients:
Ingredients
- 500 ml cream 150 ml milk 1 vanilla pod 3 yolks 100 g caster sugar
- 500 ml milk 100 g caster sugar yolks 1 vanilla pod
- 250 ml milk 250 ml cream 100 g caster sugar 4 yolks vanilla pod
- 500 ml milk 50 g caster sugar 2 yolks 1 vanilla pod
- 300 ml milk 1 vanilla pod 1 tbsp caster sugar 1 yolk 1 tbsp corn flour