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.

Baby steps - custard from scratch

Although a big fan of custard, my custard making experience has so far been limited to making custard from powder.  Before I tackle something ambitious like galaktaboureko I thought I'd better start with making a simple custard from scratch.

Baked or stovetop?  I guess I should try both.

Lots of the recipes I looked at online included cornflour in the list of ingredients and I'm pretty sure it is the taste of cornflour that I dislike about the bird's custard powder so I've selected recipes without.

The baked custard recipe I'm going to try is from herbivoracious.com - it has a simple list of ingredients and lots of ideas for variations once I've mastered the basic recipe.  I also like the proportions - it will be easy to do a half or quarter recipe.

The stovetop recipe is from the BBC Food website.  It almost looks too easy.

Custard Cravings

Both times I have been pregnant I've had strong cravings for dairy - favourite fixes in the first trimester included raita and breadsticks or custard and fruit.

Because we were spending a small fortune on buying cans of Devon's custard from the small shop around the corner, we bought some Bird's custard powder and I discovered that Bird's custard was not for me.  I cant describe what I find exactly wrong with it - its just too yellow and tastes funny.  I grew up in New Zealand with Edmond's custard - which, to me, is how custard *should* taste.  We also sometimes had sea-meal custard - which had a kind of salty taste and for the life of me I've never been able to find it as an adult.

When I was 14 I worked for a time as a waitress in a short lived Greek restaurant in Auckland called The Parthenon.  My favourite desert from the restaurant was a custard pie called Galaktaboureko but I found it difficult to find when on holiday in Greece.  The desert menus all have Baklava and Kataifi but never Galaktaboureko until we went to a place in a tiny beach in Lefkada. Looking at the Greek spelling on the menu the 'traditional desert' looked like it might be the custard pie I remembered from the past and indeed it was - a heavenly creamy custard encased in crisp filo pastry sprinkled with cinnamon.  Yum!

This started me thinking about the different types of custard found around the world - from Creme Brulee in France to a Mexican Caramel Flan.  Even some New York Cheesecake recipes are basically baked custard at heart.  In this blog I am going to try different types of custard and custard dishes from around the world.