Skip to main content
Dessert

Plain Boiled or Baked Custard

A plain custard of milk, eggs and sugar, either cooked over hot water or baked in cups.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Evora Bucknum Perkins · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 2 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Plain Boiled or Baked Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard on the stove

  1. Beat eggs with sugar just enough to blend whites and yolks.

  2. Add milk and stir until sugar is dissolved.

  3. Cook, stirring over hot water, until the custard thinly coats the spoon.

  4. Remove quickly from fire.

  5. Add flavoring if desired.

  6. Strain into pitcher or glass sauce dish.

  7. Serve cold.

Or bake in cups

  1. Pour hot milk slowly over beaten eggs and sugar, stirring.

  2. Strain and pour into buttered custard cups.

  3. Set cups in a pan of hot water.

  4. Bake slowly until creamy all through, or until a silver knife comes out clean when run into the custard.

  5. Do not allow the water around the cups to boil at any time.

  6. Cool as rapidly as possible.

  7. As soon as creamy, set a large quantity of custard into cold water and stir until below the coagulating point.

By Evora Bucknum Perkins. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Coagulate when heated, setting the custard into a soft, sliceable body.
Milk (in the method)
Provides the liquid base and moisture that the set egg proteins hold.
Sugar (in the method)
Sweetens the custard and helps keep it smooth and tender.

The step that matters

Do not let the water around the cups boil. Egg proteins set with gentle heat. Boiling water runs hotter than the custard should get, which can curdle or overcook it, leaving it grainy and watery instead of creamy.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes