Seeking pure culinary pleasures or just some joy to pour over cakes? Let’s get started and pick one of these custard recipes!

Custard is with us since the middle ages. It survived the ignorance of age leading out the ravaged armies of desserts and cakes from the darkness to the fields of sugar cane and high-speed internet.

Its long journey hasn’t come without battle scars or stains on its pride though. Custard is something that has only one name but made up of many stitches.

Sure enough, the French tried and actually succeeded in reining its scruffiness into culinary forms, giving names to the various ingredients and techniques custard can be made but this effort hasn’t yet dripped through the barrier of languages yet.

So far, we only know about custard and the various ways we can prepare it, sometimes mixing ingredients together for fun or simply in search for perfection. Which is actually works.

Custard is a milk or cream-based thing that is thickened with yolk or starch or both. Starch can be either corn or plain white flour with little to none recognizable differences. Custard is most well known with vanilla but there are a variety of options to shake up its creaminess. Well known flavors include chocolate or lemon but any artificial or natural extract can be used like strawberry, punch or banana.

The techniques used to thicken the liquid largely remains the same, no matter if we use only yolk, starch or both, except the temperature required for cooking alters slightly. In case of using only yolks as a thickening agent, the temperature shouldn’t reach higher values than 175°F – 180°F / 80°C – 82°C as that results of curdling.

Using a bit of starch gives us a bit of leeway with the option to throw away our kitchen thermometer and let our six-sense wander on fields where custard trees grow peach looking fruits filled with natural custard ready to harvest any time, we close our eyes.

Starch starts to thicken when water or in our case milk is ready to change its aggregate from liquid into gaseous state at 212˚F / 100°C or in kitchen words when it starts to bubble.

However, a bit of starch gives us a bit more room to wriggle, we still have to mind what we are doing if we want to end up a consistent looking cream. Letting off the spoon to rest a couple of seconds at crucial times could result not only burnt but curdled custard too.

French call the custard with egg and corn starch a Pastry cream by no accident. Due to the thickness achievable with starch, it is perfectly suitable for creamy fillings or similar pastry pleasures. While the starch free variation is more suitable to use where such sturdiness isn’t required like the floating islands or a lusty dressing for a boring looking cake.

Here we have the three basic custard recipes that anyone can vary according to the thickness required at any time.

Mind that the more egg yolks we try to blend into the milk in the pursuit of thickening the custard, the more egg yolks taste we’ll get that may not going to be desirable. Also, when making chocolate custard be aware that the cocoa powder also thickens the liquid to some degree, although it won’t set it in a way starches do.

Custard – Problems and Solutions

Sugar-Free-Keto-Custard-Recipe-4-SunCakeMom

Ingredients

Beginner – Starch only custard

2 cups / 500g Milk
2 tablespoons / 16g Cornstarch (40g for pudding)
2 tablespoons / 40g Honey or sweetener to taste
1 teaspoon / 5g Vanilla extract

Advanced – Egg and starch custard

3 medium / 60g Egg yolks
1 tablespoon / 8g Cornstarch
1 teaspoons / 5g Vanilla extract
2 tablespoons / 40g Honey or sweetener to taste
2 cups / 500g Milk

Pro – Egg only Custard – Keto

10 medium / 200g Egg yolks
1 teaspoon / 5g Vanilla extract or beans
Sweetener to taste
1 cup / 250g Milk
1 cup / 250g Heavy whipping cream (optional substitute with milk)

How to make Custard

Beginner – Starch only custard

Mix milk, corn starch, honey or sweetener of choice and vanilla extract in a pot. This will result in a white sauce like bechamel. Add food colorant if desired.
Heat the mixture while stirring continuously until thickens.
Pour into serving dishes. Chill before serving.

Advanced – Egg and starch custard

In a medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks for about a minute until light yellow and increased in volume.
Whisk in the cornstarch, vanilla extract, honey or sweetener of choice and a bit of milk.
Mix egg yolk mixture into the rest of the milk and start heating it up in a pot while continuously stirring to avid burning down. Mix until thickens.

Pro – Egg only Custard – Keto

In a medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks, vanilla extract and sweetener to taste for about a minute until light yellow and increased in volume.
Mix egg yolk mixture into the milk and start heating it up in a pot while continuously stirring to avid burning down. Mix until thickens which should happen at 175°F – 180°F / 80°C – 82°C.