Homemade milk custard

How to prepare homemade custard . The first memory I have about custard, I imagine it will be like that of many people, is to prepare them for the custard and chocolate cake . The homemade custard or thick, thin, are the basis for many dessert recipes  that will make your pleasure is relamen.

As a child I thought that custard came in an envelope, you emptied it in milk, you warmed up and that’s it. What a great discovery when I first made some authentic egg custard.  That fine flavor, with a hint of cornmeal just to thicken a little bit. I have not bought any more of this type for home, and what I recommend is that you do the same, because when you try this recipe there is no going back.

This simple and inexpensive dessert has a curious history, as with most creams we have theories that place it in Roman times. They appear documented in the Middle Ages in various convents and monasteries throughout Europe. What is no doubt is that the use of two ingredients as common as eggs and milk. These ingredients resulted in a non-sweet cream but widely used in kitchens. Refinement came with the golden age of spices, when refined sugar, vanilla and cinnamon appear. Hence the evolution in French cuisine of what we know today with custard in our day.

What have you never prepared? What are you waiting for? I already tell you that this recipe comes out yes or yes, so get to it as soon as you can, you will see that they are delicious!

Preparation of flavored milk for custard

1. The first thing is to prepare the ingredients with which we are going to flavor the milk. We wash the lemon very well and peel its skin in a fine way, without much white that then makes the dessert bitter. We open the vanilla bean and remove the seeds that we will reserve to add later to the milk.
2. We separate a glass of milk from the total that we are going to use and reserve it. Heat the rest of the milk in a saucepan over medium heat almost to the boiling point. We lower the temperature and remove from the heat. We add the vanilla seeds, the skin of the lemon and finally the cinnamon stick broken in half. We leave everything to rest infusing for 10 minutes.
3. Mix the cornstarch in the glass of warm milk and put it together without any lumps, if necessary pass the minipimer. We separate the yolks from the whites. We put the yolks in a bowl and beat with the sugar until it foams. Add the glass of milk with the dissolved cornstarch. We beat again until there are no lumps, there must be a homogeneous mass. We reserve.

Final preparation and presentation of the custard

1. Strain the infused milk and add it to the saucepan again. Heat to a boil and add the cream from the previous step.
2. We are adding it little by little and mixing with some rods or a wooden spoon without stopping until it thickens.
3. It should not boil at any time, the texture of the custard should be slightly thick and without lumps. It is very important not to stop stirring as it can get burned or stick to the pot. The secret as in almost all recipes is to be patient and do not stop stirring always on the same side until you have a homogeneous cream.
4. We choose the containers where we are going to present the custard. We pour the custard into the glasses, bowls or casseroles through a strainer to avoid that there is any lump (a trick in case one has formed).
5. Let cool to room temperature and then reserve in the fridge. To avoid crusting, cover with a transparent film.

Once the custard is cold we just have to decorate them with a cookie of your choice and sprinkle with a little cinnamon powder. I assure you that they are delicious!

You can see all the photos of the step by step in the next album .

Your tips and advice for perfect custard

• The use or not of corn flour or starch (cornstarch type to understand us) is optional. It is still a thickener that helps give consistency to the cream, if we use it you can decrease or increase the amount as you prefer. Achieving a more liquid or thick consistency.
• If you do not want to add fine corn flour, you will get some custard with a very fine texture, delicate and rich in flavor. It is important to use more yolks and they cannot boil. So they are a little more complicated than the ones I show you in this recipe. If you want to make them like this, you have to add about 14 yolks for the liter and a half of milk, the other ingredients will be the same.
• The trick so that the eggs do not curdle in the recipe is not to add them directly to the saucepan that we have previously put on the fire. It is a great recommendation, because this way when cooking we avoid that the cream is cut. You also have the possibility of doing them in the water bath, they will come out safe. Well, by reducing the direct heat we make it easier for the custard to be made ahead of time and not to burn.
• Custard is the base of many desserts. We can find from the classic chocolate, custard flan, custard with meringue, rice pudding, creamy apple and pear custard, fruit, caramel custard … you will soon see many of these recipes on the blog.