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Baked Custard Pudding
Take as many eggs as will, when level, cover the bottom of the dish in which you intend to bake the custard. Break each one into a separate cup before it is mixed with the rest, to insure the quality of the eggs. Beat them a minute or two, but not too much, or the custard will be watery. Fill the dish with milk, sweeten liberally, and add a pinch of salt. Flavor with brandy, lemon, almond, vanilla, rose-water, orange-water, or any other flavoring. Stir all together. Grate a little nutmeg on the top, and bake in a moderate oven. As soon as the custard is set it is done enough. Time to bake, about half an hour.
The recipe measures by the dish rather than by the cup, which works better than it sounds: eggs laid flat across the bottom of the baking dish come out to roughly the right proportion for the milk that fills it. A few numbers make it repeatable.
- Translating the egg countEggs laid level across the base of a dish of about 1½ quarts come to roughly half a dozen large eggs, which lands near the usual baked-custard proportion of about 5 or 6 eggs to a quart of milk. Anything much leaner sets weakly; much richer turns firm and sliceable rather than creamy.
- "Sweeten liberally"Between 1/3 and 1/2 cup of sugar per quart of milk suits modern palates. More than that and the custard both tastes cloying and sets slightly softer, since sugar raises the temperature at which egg proteins coagulate.
- Oven temperatureA moderate oven here means 325-350F. Custard is more forgiving at the lower end; 325F gives you a wider margin before the edges overcook.
- Use a water bathThe book omits it, but setting the dish in a pan of hot water reaching halfway up its sides is what prevents a curdled, weeping custard. Without it the outer inch overcooks before the centre sets.
- Judging "as soon as it is set"Pull it when the outer two inches are firm and a circle in the middle still trembles as a unit; it finishes on residual heat. An instant-read thermometer in the centre should show 170-175F. Half an hour is right for a shallow dish, closer to 45-50 minutes for a deep one.
- Don't overbeatThe warning about watery custard is sound. Beating whips in air, which is generally held to collapse in the oven and leave pockets and a weeping surface. Stir the eggs just until the yolks and whites are combined.
- The flavoringsRose-water and orange-flower water are still sold at Middle Eastern grocers, and modern bottles vary a good deal in strength -- start with a teaspoon per quart and taste. For almond, use almond extract; bitter almond oil, which some period cooks meant, is not a domestic ingredient today.
- YieldA quart of milk and six eggs serves six to eight. Individual ramekins in the same water bath set in 25-30 minutes.