There custard it is one of the most famous preparations in the world. Soft, greedy, versatile, it becomes the perfect filling for each cake, even the most improvised. You need a few ingredients and a minimum effort to prepare it and when it does not go to enrich sponge cake, cream puffs or plum cake, it is perfect even as a dessert with a spoon, accompanied by a tasty biscuit.
Check out all the tips and secrets on how to make custard.
Pastry or confectioner?
Let's start by saying that the correct form with which to indicate this preparation is custard is not confectioner. Although the second adjective is also commonly used, the correct wording states that the word does not have the second i.
Where the custard cream is born
Eggs, milk, sugar, flour and flavors: simple ingredients, available to humanity for centuries, combined to create the cream of creams, the much loved custard. But who was the first to create what in France they call crème pâtissière?
Although the inventor of custard is lost in the fog of time, the first person who wrote the recipe was François Massialot. It is an important cook, who has worked for numerous famous personalities such as Philippe I, Duke of Orléans (brother of Louis XIV), the duke of Aumont, the cardinal d'Estrées and the marquis de Louvois. Born and lived in France between 1600 and 1700, in 1691 he wrote a very interesting book, considered one of the first culinary dictionaries: Le cuisinier roïal et bourgeois. This book also lists recipes that are today the cornerstones of world confectionery, such as the crème brûlée, the sugar paste and of course the custard. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the English spread his work, translating the volume with the title The Court and Country Cook.
Monsieur Massialot thought big and in his recipe book offers them doses to prepare a lot of custard. Start like this: "If you want to do it for several occasions, beat 12 eggs, egg yolk and egg white together Once well beaten, add about 250 grams of flour or little more and mix it all together Add a dozen eggs that you will continue to mix with the previous mixture At the same time put a liter and a half of milk in a large saucepan and bring to a boil.At the boiling point reached, pour the milk into the previously created mixture, stirring constantly Add a pinch of salt, 225 grams of butter and a pinch of White pepper and cook stirring occasionally, making sure that the mixture does not stick to the bottom of the pot. Once the cream has cooked and has become thick, pour it in another saucepan and let it cool. When you want to make some cakes, take the amount of cream you need depending on the size of the cake and pour it in another saucepan. Mix well with a spatula and add sugar, chopped candied lemon peel, some orange flower water, some egg yolks and some melted beef fat. Make sure that the ingredients are well incorporated and amalgamated and make your cakes with the puff pastry with which you will make a small edge that will cover the layer of cream prepared by you. Cook the cake and when almost cooked, glaze and serve ".
There is even an indication to make custard for the days of skinny, that is vigilie and friday: you can "use melted butter instead of animal fat".
How to make custard (even microwave)
For prepare the custard take half a liter of milk and pour it into a saucepan. Add a vanilla pod, which you will have practiced an opening for the whole length, so that the aroma can pass to the cream.
Bring the mix to a boil. Meanwhile, separate the yolks of 4 eggs from the egg whites, which you do not need in this preparation. Whip the egg yolks with 80 grams of sugar: you can do it by hand, with a whisk or an electric mixer, until the mixture becomes swollen and foamy.
Add a pinch of salt and 40 grams of flour: continue to work the mixture until you get a cream. After having filtered it from the residues of the vanilla pod, pour the milk flush and dilute the egg mixture, stirring with energy.
Take the cream and cook in a saucepan over very low heat, without ever stopping to mix with a wooden spoon. When the mixture starts to simmer and thicken, remove from heat and let the cream cool in a large bowl. To prevent it from setting on the surface, put a film sheet in contact with the cream.
You can prepare the custard cream al microwave: it takes only 5 minutes. Start by mixing 3 egg yolks with 40 grams of sugar and 20 grams of cornstarch, add 4 deciliters of cold milk and cook for 2 minutes in the microwave at 750W without covering it. Stir, cook for another 2 minutes and mix until the cream is homogeneous.
How many ingredients x 4 people? And to fill a cake?
Given that the custard it can also be served as a dessert with a spoon, here are the doses for 4 people. Obtain 4 egg yolks, 80 grams of sugar, 40 grams of flour, a vanilla pod, half a liter of whole milk and a pinch of salt. To fill a cake, like the Saint Honoré, it is advisable to double the doses.
Cream to flavor the custard
There custard it can be enriched with smells that make it even more special and greedy. First of all, the rind of lemon: try adding a grated piece of an organic lemon from Amalfi. The scent will be intoxicating. The same goes for the oranges, but it does not end there.
The custard can be flavored with a teaspoon of cinnamon in powder, or with two tablespoons of coffee soluble dissolved in a little hot water. For a refined solution, you can create del caramel, dissolving in a pan 50 grams of sugar and a tablespoon of water. Stir with a wooden spoon and bring to a boil. Leave to thicken by moving the pan. Add a tablespoon of hot water and continue to stir. Pour on hot custard, mix gently and let it rest.
But the custard can also be enriched by the cocoa, you will get the chocolate custard. You can also add some of the Nutella or even of the liquor. In this case the "vial" based on alcohol, perhaps flavored with coconut, or the dose of superacolico chosen should be added to the egg and sugar mixture, never in hot milk.
How to color the custard
We can color the custard, "turning on" the natural yellow color, replacing the flour with starches of corn: the color will be lively and you can use the cream to fill your cakes in the cold.
If you want to give your cream a specific color, you can use a food coloring, which will not affect the taste of your cream. The dyes on the market are in powder, liquid, gel, paste and spray version. Those in gel are the most suitable to create colorful creams. The only trick: the dyes work in small doses to get a first idea of the final effect.
In addition to food colors it is possible to create natural colors using ingredients that contain pigments such as i blueberries, le strawberries, the curry or the turmeric (pay attention to the very strong taste of these spices), lo saffron. To get a green custard you can use the syrup mint.
How to thicken a thick dense custard
We find out how to thicken a thick dense custard. The thing to do is to intervene when it is hot: while mixing the mixture of milk, eggs, sugar and flour, add potato starch, cornstarch or a thickener for desserts. Do it as soon as possible: if you intervene when the cream has cooled down, it will be impossible to avoid the formation of lumps.
If you decide to add some flour with the cream still warm, be sure to sift it well before. While adding the selected thickener, keep stirring to make the mixture homogeneous. Be careful not to put too much flour, to avoid the opposite effect: a cream too hard. In the unfortunate event that this happens, you can always decide to eat it like a pudding.
How to recover crazed custard
Also there custard can go crazy, just like mayonnaise. Little errs are enough in the preparation and everything can be lost. The root causes of the "madness" of the custard are: the sifted flour, which then forms lumps; boiling the mixture (must simmer, constantly monitored); do not mix it continuously and always in the same verse.
If you've committed even one of these mistakes and you're faced with a crumpled custard, here it is how to recover it. Remove it immediately from the fire and, with an electric hand blender, start to beat it. Or, following an old grandmother's remedy, put it in a glass bottle, tap it well and start banging it vigorously for a few minutes.
How to use advanced custard
If you followed the doses to prepare the custard suggested by monsieur Massialot, it could happen that you have to manage some leftovers. Do not worry: there are many sweets that you can prepare even with small amounts of stuffing.
For example, there are cream puffs, which you can fill and then cover with chocolate. You can add custard to tiramisu instead of mascarpone cream. You can prepare an excellent custard and fruit tart or, if you have puff pastry in the fridge, you can create small squares to cook in the oven and then garnish with the cream. Create little ones "sporcamuss": puff pastry filled with custard and sprinkled with powdered sugar.
How to store custard
Since there are milk and eggs in the dough, preserving the custard is possible, but only for some day and only after taking some precautions. Wait until the cream cools and then put it in a container, putting a layer of transparent food film in contact with the cream, to prevent it from forming a hard film. Otherwise use an airtight container.
How to soften cold custard
If you are wondering how to soften the cold custard, the answer is simple. Take it out of the fridge and start working it with a spatula until it has resumed a higher temperature and will have regained softness.
Custard cream for celiacs
To prepare the cremake gluten-free pastry, it will be sufficient to replace the normal flour with corn starch or any other thickener that does not contain wheat flour (here all the alternatives suitable for celiacs).
Custard: recipes without
Now that we know how to prepare the traditional custard, we discover the variants "without". Let's start with the custard without milk. It is a recipe that will help you to meet your guests who can not stand it lactose. Simply replace a vegetable milk with normal cow's milk. You can also make one custard without eggs, using only half a liter of milk, 100 grams of brown sugar, 90 grams of starch, a lemon or orange peel and a pinch of turmeric to give color. This recipe is perfect for those who follow one vegan diet. You can also make a cream without sugar, ideal for who it is diabetic: just replace it with two teaspoons of stevia.
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