Custard
From Free net encyclopedia
- For the type of eggless "custard" based on cornflour (powder), and popular in Britain, see Bird's Custard. For the Australian band Custard, see Custard (band).
Custard is a family of preparations based on milk and eggs, thickened with heat. Most commonly, it refers to a dessert or dessert sauce, but custard bases are also used for quiches and other savoury foods.
As a dessert, it is made from a combination of milk or cream, egg yolks, sugar, and flavourings such as vanilla. Sometimes flour, corn starch, or gelatin are also added. In French cookery, custard—confusingly called just crème—is never thickened in this way: when starch is added, it is pastry cream crème pâtissière; when gelatin is added, it is crème anglaise collée.
Depending on how much egg or thickener is used, custard may vary in consistency from a thin pouring sauce (crème anglaise), to a thick blancmange like that used for vanilla slice or the pastry cream used to fill éclairs.
Custard is an important part of dessert recipes from many countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Australia.
Instant and ready-made 'custards' are also marketed, though they are not true custards if they are not thickened with egg. See Bird's Custard, for instance.
Custard thickened with starch is a non-Newtonian fluid which in short means that if impacted with sufficient force it behaves more like a solid than a liquid, as a consequence, as was dramatically demonstrated on Sky Television's Brainiac: Science Abuse programme, it is possible for a full-grown adult to walk across a swimming pool filled with custard, without sinking.
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Method
For a basic dessert custard, whisk 1/4 cup sugar with 4 egg yolks until pale yellow and thick enough to form a slowly dissolving ribbon when lifted. Then add 1 1/2 cups cream that has been brought to a boil, very slowly and mixing continually. Set over moderate heat (no more than 75 degrees Celsius), and stir continually until it thickens.
Most custard is cooked in a double boiler (bain-marie) or heated very gently on the stove in a saucepan, but custard can also be steamed or baked in the oven with or without a hot water bath.
Uses
Some varieties of Ice cream use a custard base.
Recipes involving sweet custard include:
- Bavarois
- Crème brûlée
- Crème caramel
- Cream puff
- Custard tarts
- Danish pastry
- English trifle
- egg tart
- Flan
- Floating islands (dessert)
- Frozen custard
- Panna cotta
- Pumpkin pie
- Vanilla slice
- Zabaglione
- Vla
Savoury custards
Not all custards are sweet. Quiche is a savoury custard tart. Some kinds of timbale or vegetable loaf are made of a custard base mixed with chopped savoury ingredients.
See also
Template:Cookbookes:Crema (gastronomía) fa:سس کاسترد nl:Custard ja:カスタードクリーム simple:Custard