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Boiled Custard
One quart milk, two table-spoons corn starch, two eggs, one-fourth tea-spoon salt, butter size of a hickory-nut; wet the starch in a little of the milk, heat the remainder to near boiling, in a tin pail set in a pot of boiling water. The proper heat will be indicated by a froth or film rising to the top; add the starch till it thickens, stirring constantly, then add the eggs well-beaten with four table-spoons of sugar, let it cook, stirring briskly, take off and beat well; flavor; served with grated cocoa-nut it is elegant.
A stirred custard stabilized with corn starch, cooked over water so the eggs cannot curdle. Everything hinges on gentle heat and constant motion.
- The vesselA tin pail set in a pot of boiling water is a double boiler. Use a metal or glass bowl over simmering water, with the bowl not touching the liquid, or a proper double boiler insert.
- Butter size of a hickory-nutA shelled hickory nut is small — reckon about 2 teaspoons of butter. It is there for richness and a smoother mouthfeel, not structure, so precision does not matter.
- The film on the milkThe "froth or film rising to the top" is the milk scalding, somewhere around 180F. Egg-thickened custards generally begin to set in threads not far above that.
- Adding the starch"Add the starch till it thickens" means pour in the whole slurry gradually and keep stirring until the milk takes on body. Corn starch needs to reach a near-simmer to lose its raw taste and thicken fully, which over water takes a few minutes of patience.
- Tempering the eggsBeat the eggs with the sugar, then whisk a ladle of the hot milk into them before returning the mixture to the pan; adding cold beaten egg straight to hot custard is how it goes grainy.
- How long to cook after the eggsTwo or three minutes of brisk stirring is generally enough — the custard should coat the back of a spoon and hold a drawn line. Cooking on much longer risks scrambling.
- Beating and flavoringThe instruction to "beat well" off the heat cools the custard quickly and smooths out any lumps; a wire whisk or a brief blitz with a stick blender does it. Flavor once it is off the stove — vanilla, nutmeg, or a spoon of sherry — since alcohol and vanilla both dull with heat.
- Yield and servingA quart of milk gives roughly six small cups. Serve cold in glasses with grated coconut on top, or warm over stewed fruit or cake; press plastic wrap on the surface if you want no skin.
Buckeye Cookery came out of 1870s Ohio, and its custard recipes reflect a moment when corn starch had moved from novelty to pantry staple in American kitchens. A true boiled custard is nothing but milk, eggs and sugar stirred over water, and it is unforgiving — one lapse of attention and it curdles. Adding a couple of spoonfuls of corn starch is insurance: the starch granules interfere with the egg proteins and raise the temperature at which they seize, so the cook has a margin of error. That trick is why so many nineteenth-century household books print custards with starch in them. The grated coconut finish suggests a dish meant for company; desiccated and shredded coconut was becoming widely available in American groceries in the later part of the century, and it turns a plain nursery pudding into something a hostess could bring to the table.