No. 3160

Custard or Bain-Marie Cream

Creme au Bain-Marie

Break five whole eggs in a vessel, add three yolks, six ounces of sugar (powdered), grated lemon and orange peel and a grain of salt. Dilute with two gills of milk and two gills of cream, beat up the preparation, strain it several times through a sieve, then pour it into a souffle pan (Fig. 182) or simply into a china pie dish (Fig. 183). Stand this vessel in a pan containing boiling water and push it in a slack oven to bake. Take it out after forty-five or fifty minutes. As soon as the cream is firm take it out and leave cool. Just when ready to serve unmold it on a cold dish, and dress over the top some whipped cream flavored with lemon.

Another way.-Have one pint of milk and one pint of raw cream, six eggs and eight yolks, half a pound of powdered sugar, one grain of salt and either some orange-flower water, zests or vanilla. Dilute with the milk and cream and strain through a sieve; put this preparation into a buttered mold in a saucepan with boiling water reaching to half its height; push it into a slack oven and when the cream is firm to the touch unmold it on a dish.

← No. 3159 Custard in a Dish Cold Entremets — Creams, Jellies & Charlottes No. 3161 Custard or Bain-Marie Cream with Caramel →

For the Modern Kitchen

A baked custard set firm enough to unmold, from Ranhofer's cold entremets. Two versions are given: the first is a moderate custard, the second nearly twice as rich in egg and intended to stand up on a dish.

The gillsA gill is half a cup, so the first version uses one cup milk and one cup cream to five whole eggs plus three yolks. The second version scales up to a pint each of milk and cream.
Slack ovenA slack oven is a cool one, usually reckoned somewhere around 275-325F; the book gives no figure. The water bath plus low heat is what keeps the custard from curdling; do not be tempted upward to shorten the 45-50 minutes.
Doneness, not timeCustard is set when the center reaches 170-175F and a knife inserted an inch from the edge comes out clean; the middle should still wobble slightly. Carryover heat finishes it. Overbaked custard weeps and turns grainy, and no amount of chilling repairs it.
A grain of saltRead this as a pinch, not a literal grain. Ranhofer uses the phrase throughout for a quantity too small to weigh.
Straining several timesNot fussiness. Repeated straining removes the chalazae and any threads of set egg, and it is the difference between a custard that unmolds smooth and one that unmolds pitted. Skim the foam off the surface before baking as well.
Why the second version is so eggySix whole eggs plus eight yolks to a quart of liquid gives a custard firm enough to turn out of a mold and hold its shape.
UnmoldingChill thoroughly, several hours at least. Dip the mold briefly in warm water, run a thin knife around the rim, and invert onto a cold plate. A well-buttered mold and complete chilling matter more than any trick at this stage.
FlavoringRubbing grated lemon and orange zest into the sugar draws out the oils. Orange-flower water, called for in the second version, is still sold; use it sparingly, a teaspoon or less per quart.
YieldThe first version, on a pint of liquid, will serve about six; the second, made with a quart, about eight to ten.

A Little History

The bain-marie gives this custard its name — a vessel standing in hot water, a technique old enough that the term was already standard French kitchen vocabulary long before Charles Ranhofer set down The Epicurean in 1894 from his years as chef at Delmonico's in New York. The word is generally traced to medieval alchemy and the figure of Maria the Jewess, credited in later sources with the gentle water-heated apparatus; whether the attribution is historical or legendary, the point of the thing is unchanged, which is to hold a protein below the temperature at which it seizes. Ranhofer's placement of the recipe among the cold entremets is worth noting: this is not a nursery pudding but a molded dessert meant to be turned out whole and dressed with whipped cream, the sort of dish a nineteenth-century restaurant kitchen could prepare in the morning and hold for evening service. The numbered entries on either side of it — custard in a dish, custard with caramel — show how systematically he worked through variations on a single base, which is much of what makes the book useful to read straight through.