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Custard (Eggs cup milk Sugar teaspoon)
2 eggs 1 cup milk Sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla Beat the eggs; stir them into the milk; sweeten to taste and cook in a double boiler. Stir until the mixture begins to thicken; remove from the fire and when the steam has passed off add the vanilla.
Lemon or other flavoring may be used in place of the vanilla if desired. 4 calves'
A stirred ("boiled") custard in its plainest form, cooked in a double boiler rather than baked. The recipe as printed runs into the opening line of the next one — the calves' feet and water belong to a jelly, not to this.
- The hinge: temperature, not timeA stirred custard sets between about 170°F and 180°F and scrambles above roughly 185°F. Pull it from the heat the moment it coats the back of a spoon and holds a clear line when you draw a finger through it; carryover heat will finish the job.
- Sugar "to taste"For 1 cup of milk and 2 eggs, 2 to 3 tablespoons is the usual range. Less than that and the custard tastes flat; much more and it thins noticeably.
- Double boilerKeep the water at a bare simmer and do not let the upper pan touch it. A heavy saucepan over low heat works too, but only if you stir constantly and are willing to watch it.
- Whole eggs, not yolksThe whites coagulate at a lower temperature than the yolks, so a whole-egg custard breaks more readily and tastes less rich than an all-yolk one. Beat them well and strain the mixture into the pan to catch chalazae.
- Rescuing a curdled batchIf it breaks, tip it at once into a cold bowl and whisk hard, or blitz it briefly. It will not be perfect but it is usually salvageable.
- Flavoring after the heatThe instruction to add vanilla only once the steam has passed off is sound — alcohol-based extract loses much of its aroma to a hot pan. For lemon, use zest steeped in the warm milk beforehand rather than juice, which will curdle the eggs.
- YieldRoughly a cup and a quarter of sauce: two small servings poured over fruit or cake, or one dessert on its own. Double or triple it freely; the ratio scales.
- The stray line"4 calves' feet, 3 quarts water" is not part of the custard; the quantities look like the opening of a calf's-foot jelly on the following recipe. Ignore it here.
Stirred custard of this kind — eggs, milk, sugar, a flavoring, and nothing else — was the workhorse sweet of the American household kitchen, served as a sauce over stewed fruit or plain cake, spooned over floating islands, or given to invalids and children as something nourishing and easily swallowed. The recipe calls for no oven and no water bath, just gentle indirect heat and a spoon.