Easy Custard
By America's Test KitchenPublished on February 18, 2013
Yield
Serves 7 (Makes 3 1/2 cups)
Ingredients
Instructions
- Heat cream, 6 tablespoons sugar, and salt in heavy saucepan over medium heat until simmering, stirring occasionally to dissolve sugar. Meanwhile, whisk egg yolks in medium bowl until thoroughly combined. Whisk in remaining 2 tablespoons sugar until sugar begins to dissolve. Whisk in cornstarch until mixture is pale yellow and thick, about 30 seconds.
- When cream mixture comes to simmer, remove from heat and gradually whisk half into yolk mixture to temper, whisking constantly. Return cream-yolk mixture to remaining cream in saucepan, scraping bowl with rubber spatula; return to simmer over medium heat, whisking constantly, until pudding is thickened and registers 180 degrees in several places, about 1 minute.
- Off heat, whisk in butter and vanilla. Strain through fine-mesh strainer set over clean bowl, press plastic wrap directly on surface, and refrigerate until set, at least 3 hours or up to 2 days.
Yield
Serves 7 (Makes 3 1/2 cups)Ingredients
Ingredients
Ingredients
Why This Recipe Works
UPDATE: This recipe has been slightly reformulated to be more failproof since its initial publication. The revision you see here was published in August of 2021. Pastry cream is the key ingredient in many desserts, so we developed a failproof recipe for Easy Custard. For the richest texture, we used only the yolk of the eggs in the custard. Cornstarch helped prevent the eggs from curdling, while butter gave the custard a silky texture. To maximize its impact, we added vanilla extract to the custard only after the sauce came off the heat. To prevent the custard from developing a skin as it cooled, we pressed plastic wrap directly onto its surface.
Instructions
- Heat cream, 6 tablespoons sugar, and salt in heavy saucepan over medium heat until simmering, stirring occasionally to dissolve sugar. Meanwhile, whisk egg yolks in medium bowl until thoroughly combined. Whisk in remaining 2 tablespoons sugar until sugar begins to dissolve. Whisk in cornstarch until mixture is pale yellow and thick, about 30 seconds.
- When cream mixture comes to simmer, remove from heat and gradually whisk half into yolk mixture to temper, whisking constantly. Return cream-yolk mixture to remaining cream in saucepan, scraping bowl with rubber spatula; return to simmer over medium heat, whisking constantly, until pudding is thickened and registers 180 degrees in several places, about 1 minute.
- Off heat, whisk in butter and vanilla. Strain through fine-mesh strainer set over clean bowl, press plastic wrap directly on surface, and refrigerate until set, at least 3 hours or up to 2 days.
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