Custard

[Redwinger]

As a kid my very favorite treat was an occasional 6 oz. serving of custard from the Jewish deli on the corner. They may have cost 5 cents at the time I think you got a penny back for returning the glass serving container. Drinking my coffee on the veranda today and was thinking somma that chilled (not frozen!) custard would sure taste good. Not many Jewish delis here in the hinterlands of Indiana, but was wondering if anyone here might have a killer recipe to share.
I hope it is not hard to duplicate as I need a custard fix pronto.

[Rahsaan]

My usual recipe:

2 cups dairy (cream, milk, mixture, etc)
2 eggs plus 2 yolks
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup sugar (the recipe calls for this, but I usually put less)

Heat dairy (potentially with vanilla pod, nutmeg, cinammon etc)
Combine eggs, yolks, salt, sugar
Slowly mix eggs etc into dairy, you don't want to shock them and cook them too quickly.

Bake in oven at 300F for approximately 30 minutes (depending on whether cream or milk) in a water bath

I always love it, although of course the key is the quality of the eggs and the dairy.

[Hoke]

Custard. Interesting.

Didn't realize, until I lived up in the MidWest for a while, that custard was such a strong affection regionally.

Up in Wisconsin where my first wife grew up, they ate custard generally---frozen custard---in lieu of ice cream. When I grew up initially down in the South, we didn't know from custard; our frozen confection was slushy ice cream, often hand-churned over rock salt, with whatever seasonal fruits available thrown in.

In Milwaukee though, frozen custard stands and drive-ins were almost literally all over the place (beaten out only by the ubiquitous corner pubs) and frozen custard was the big thing to buy. It's where the tweeners and teeners often hung out.

[Frank Deis]

I grew up in Virginia, my wife is from Vermont, and one of the surprises of our first year of marriage was that I loved her Custard Pies. That is a very good use for custard. I don't know her recipe but I could ask...

Have not had one recently. Cholesterol.

[John Treder]

Rahsaan's recipe is pretty close to the one I use, except mine doesn't have the extra yolks.
You can put the mix in custard cups, a casserole, an unbaked pie crust, or tart shells.
If you melt some sugar and put it in the bottom of the custard cups, it's suddenly flan!
I make custard three or four times a year.
You may notice that salmon loaf, tuna loaf, and quiche also use the basic custard mix....
[edit:] To say nothing of rice pudding and bread pudding!

John

[Christina Georgina]

Love it. It was my craving when I was pregnant. Would cook up a batch and eat it in one sitting

[Jenise]

Is the difference between creme brulee and custard just the brulee part? I've always believed that to be so, but not being an egg eater I've avoided the taste tests that would give me a more informed opinion.

[Jeff Grossman/NYC]

I cannot say authoritatively without consulting my cookbooks but, at the table there is a difference among all the members of the custard family: panna cotta is the most jiggly and delicate while creme brulee is the stiffest. Between those two are flan (always a bit glossy and stretchy) and just plain-old custard (which is not as dry as chocolate mousse, say, but not so wet as ketchup).

[John Treder]

Creme brulee, at least the recipes I've seen, is a cornstarch-thickened custard, more like a pudding, rather than a pure egg-and-milk custard. I haven't tried it, but I imagine that doing the brulee part on an egg and milk custard would be more than a little bit tricky. I can imagine the custard spouting water and becoming leathery as the egg suddenly decides it's being fried!

John

[Frank Deis]

In Italy -- there seems to be a special appreciation of egg yolks. Up in the Piedmont region they make pasta (Tajarin, local dialect for Tagliarini) with as many as 3 dozen yolks per recipe. We were having lunch near the Spanish Steps in Rome, and I ordered crème brulée for dessert. What I was served was a yellow-orange color, and must have been composed mainly of egg yolks and sugar. I ate it, it was interesting, but normally I expect crème brulée to be a little refreshing especially with a nice espresso. This was overly rich and maybe a bit reminiscent of an omelet!! I don't know if that's how the dish is made generally in Italy because I didn't order it after that experience. Later I learned about olive oil gelato which was a more positive experience.

[Rahsaan]

Creme brulee, at least the recipes I've seen, is a cornstarch-thickened custard, more like a pudding, rather than a pure egg-and-milk custard.

Really? Are these French recipes?

All the better creme brulees I've eaten in France always tasted pretty eggy to me, and I thought that was their French glory (as opposed to the heathenous British use of cornstarch or Italian use of gelatin). But hey, maybe I've been wrong.

[Frank Deis]

I just remembered that the kitchen torch that I bought (Williams Sonoma) has a creme brulee recipe enclosed:

1/2 vanilla bean
2 cups heavy cream
3 egg yolks
pinch of salt
1/4 cup sugar plus more for topping.

Frankly I think that recipe represents what I've been served in good French restaurants.

So I agree with Rahsaan...

[John Treder]

I remember seeing some on the web, somewhere.
"Mastering the Art of French Cooking" has cornstarch as an option.
The one in my old (1946) Woman's Home Companion Cookbook is like yours, Frank.

I sit corrected, at least to some extent!

John