Soft Custard
1 pint milk 1/4 cup Karo, Red Label Few grains salt 1 egg yolk 1½ tablespoons Argo or Kingsford's Cornstarch 2 or 3 drops vanilla Scald the milk in a double boiler. Stir together the egg yolk, Karo, cornstarch and salt. Add to the scalded milk and cook, stirring gently, until the mixture coats the spoon-about three minutes. Chill, flavor and use as a custard or sauce.
A stirred custard stretched with cornstarch so it sets with a single yolk. The method is sound; only the brand names and a couple of timings need translating.
- Karo Red LabelKaro was sold under color-coded labels, and Red Label was one of the darker, amber-toned grades rather than the crystal-white syrup; the exact grading varied over the years. Modern light corn syrup gives a paler, cleaner custard; dark corn syrup will work but pushes the flavor toward molasses and colors the sauce.
- Argo or Kingsford'sBoth were cornstarch brands of the same company that made Karo, which is why they appear by name. Any plain cornstarch is the same product; do not substitute a starch blend or instant thickener.
- ScaldingBring the milk to about 180F, when steam rises and a skin begins to form at the edge. It should not boil.
- Slurry firstThe yolk, syrup, cornstarch and salt make a stiff paste. Whisk two or three spoonfuls of the hot milk into it before returning it to the pan, or the starch will seize into lumps the moment it hits the heat.
- Three minutes is the minimumCornstarch begins to gelatinize somewhere around 145-180F but generally needs to come close to a boil to thicken fully and shed its chalky taste. In a double boiler that usually takes longer than three minutes; cook until the custard visibly thickens and coats the back of a spoon, then give it another minute. Strain if any lumps remain.
- Flavor after chilling, not beforeThe recipe lists vanilla among the ingredients but adds it only at the end, after chilling; vanilla is volatile and loses aroma in a hot pan, so this order does no harm. Two or three drops of extract is modest by current taste, and a quarter teaspoon suits most palates today.
- Yield and keepingAbout two cups, enough for four as a sauce over fruit, cake or steamed pudding. Press plastic wrap onto the surface while it cools to stop a skin forming, and use within three days.
The branded ingredients on the page -- Karo syrup and Argo and Kingsford's cornstarch, all Corn Products Refining Company products -- point to one of that company's promotional cookbooks; specifying a particular label of syrup rather than simply "sugar" is the giveaway. "Soft custard" is the old American name for a stirred or pouring custard, the same thing the French call crème anglaise, as distinguished from a firm baked custard cut with a spoon. What suggests the corn-refining trade is the double substitution: corn syrup in place of sugar and cornstarch doing work that would otherwise fall to additional egg yolks. Booklets of this kind circulated in the earlier decades of the twentieth century, when manufacturers were eager to show that their goods could stand in for costlier sugar and eggs, though this particular page carries no date.