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Plain Soft Custard
2 cups scalded milk 2 whole eggs or 4 egg-yolks 1/8 teaspoon salt 4 tablespoons sugar 1/2 teaspoon vanilla Scald the milk in the top of the double boiler. Beat together slightly the eggs, sugar and salt. Add the hot milk to the egg mixture, mix thoroughly and return to the top of the double boiler. Cook over hot water, stirring constantly until the egg coats the spoon.
A stirred custard sauce of the plainest kind, and the technique matters more than the ingredients. The whole recipe hinges on stopping the cooking before the eggs set.
- The hinge: coating the spoonThe custard is done when it thickly films the back of a spoon and a finger drawn through leaves a clean track. On a thermometer that is 170-180F; above about 185F the eggs curdle and the sauce turns grainy.
- Rescue for a curdled batchIf it starts to break, pour it immediately into a cold bowl and whisk hard, or buzz it briefly with a stick blender. Straining through a fine sieve as you pour it out is worth doing every time regardless.
- Double boilerKeep the water hot but not boiling, and do not let the upper pan touch it. A heatproof bowl over a saucepan works much the same way. A heavy saucepan directly on low heat is faster but demands constant stirring and gives less margin for error.
- TemperingAdding the hot milk to the eggs rather than the reverse is deliberate. Pour it in a thin stream while whisking, or the yolks will scramble on contact.
- Whole eggs vs. yolksFour yolks give a richer, smoother, more yellow sauce; two whole eggs set slightly firmer and taste plainer. Yolks also curdle at a marginally higher temperature, so they are the safer choice for a first attempt.
- Vanilla timingThe recipe lists vanilla but never says when to add it. Stir it in off the heat, once the custard has been strained, so the flavor is not driven off by the cooking.
- Yield and servingAbout two cups, enough to sauce four to six servings of fruit, cake, or steamed pudding. Cover the surface with plastic wrap to prevent a skin, chill, and use within two days.
Soft custard, also called boiled custard and close kin to crème anglaise, was a standard stirred sauce of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American kitchen: it dressed up stale cake, canned fruit, and puddings that turned out plainer than intended. The same basic egg-and-milk mixture underlies baked custard, ice cream, and cream fillings, so the recipe teaches a broadly transferable skill in egg cookery. The double boiler was common middle-class kitchen equipment by the 1920s.