First baked custard - easy as 1, 2, 3!

So last night the stars aligned and I actually had all the ingredients needed to try out my first custard from scratch recipe.  I based it on the recipe at herbivoracious.com - though I'm not one for following recipes too closely so had my own variations/botchups.

For each serving I needed

• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup milk
• spoon sugar
• dash vanilla
• pinch salt
• sprinkle nutmeg

I did four servings, as I only have four ramekins, which I placed into a roasting pan on the bench, I also turned the oven on to 180 Celscius and filled and set my kettle on the gas hob to boil.


I started with measuring four ramekins of Abel and Cole organic Guernsey whole milk into a pan and slowly heating it over a low gas on the hob.  Having grown up in the land of milk and honey that is New Zealand, I never found any shop bought milk I liked until I found this - so we get a litre delivered every week.

I mixed in four soup spoons of sugar, as the half cup required from the original recipe seemed too sweet for my tastes, a pinch of salt and some vanilla stuff I had in the cupboard.

I like the way the vanilla speckles float to the top as you heat the milk.

While I was waiting for the milk mixture to heat, stirring occasionally so it didnt stick, I broke four eggs into a large bowl.

And beat them until well mixed.

When the milk mixture was steaming and just starting to shimmer before coming to a boil, I drizzled it a spoonful at a time into the eggs whisking rapidly.  This was a bit tricky as I am not the best at balancing spoonfuls of hot milk with my left hand.

I skipped the sieving step from the original recipe as I could tell I put the milk into the eggs slowly enough to avoid cooking any of the egg and poured the mixture into my pre-prepared ramekins.

Oops - I hadnt taken into account the fact that I was adding the milk to the eggs in my calculations and ended up with too much mixture.  Never mind, I found a silicon egg poaching container and made a bonus one.

I put the roasting tray into the oven and poured in the boiling water from the kettle.  I also decided to sprinkle some nutmeg over the top of the custards, but they were already in a hot oven so could only do the front two without burning my hand.

I let the custards cook for 15 minutes before checking them with a skewer which came out clean.  I removed them from the baking tray.  I dont actually have a cooling rack but found the rack from the baking tray placed upside down worked perfectly well.


We ate the bonus custard in the poached egg pot while it was still warm. The custard was much lighter and set than I expected it to be - almost the consistency of a set yoghurt.

I set the remaining four ramekins in the fridge and look forward to tasting them when they're cold.