Baked Custard
1 cup Karo 3 cups milk Few grains salt 4 eggs, beaten light 1/3 teaspoon vanilla Combine the ingredients in the order given, transfer to custard cups, stand in a pan of hot water and bake until firm in the center, in a moderate oven, 350 degrees F.
A corn-syrup custard from a manufacturer's booklet, and it behaves like any baked custard: the water bath and the oven temperature do all the work. The only real trap is overbaking.
- KaroLight corn syrup, still sold under the same name. One cup is roughly 11 oz by weight and is less sweet than sugar, perhaps three-quarters as sweet, so the finished custard is mildly sweet. Dark Karo will work but colours and flavours the custard heavily.
- Oven and water bath350F is correct as written. Set the filled cups in a deep pan and pour in boiling water to reach halfway up their sides; the water keeps the outer custard from curdling before the centre sets.
- Doneness, not time"Firm in the center" overshoots. Pull the cups when the edges are set and a circle in the middle still trembles as a unit, about 35-45 minutes for 6 oz cups. An instant-read thermometer should show 170-175F; past 180F the egg proteins squeeze out water and the custard weeps.
- Beat lightly, then strain"Beaten light" here means just broken up and blended, not aerated. Whisking in air gives a foamy, pitted top. Pour the mixture through a fine sieve into a pitcher before filling the cups, and skim any bubbles.
- VanillaA third of a teaspoon is a very small amount by modern standards. One teaspoon suits modern extract for this quantity of milk.
- MilkWhole milk gives the intended body; skim milk sets thin and watery. The recipe does not scald the milk, which is fine, though warming it shortens the bake and helps the syrup dissolve evenly.
- YieldClose to five cups of liquid custard once the eggs are counted, filling six to eight standard custard cups. Serve chilled or barely warm, with nutmeg grated over the tops before baking if you want the traditional finish.
Karo corn syrup came on the American market in the early 1900s from a predecessor of the Corn Products Refining Company, and it travelled with a free recipe booklet whose real purpose was to teach cooks to reach for it instead of the sugar barrel. Booklets of this kind pushed corn syrup into every category at once - candy, puddings, cakes, custards - and the effort paid off during the First World War, when sugar conservation campaigns urged households toward syrups and molasses. Baked custard itself is far older, an English and colonial standby of eggs, milk and sweetening set gently in a water bath, and it was a natural target for the substitution because the sweetener is dissolved rather than creamed or crystallised.