Delicious recipes
It’s a cornerstone of French cuisine, with results ranging from something you can pour with aplomb to jiggly or set creams and patisserie fillings. Dedicated custard enthusiast Emily Gussin shows how to master the technique, creating recipes that put custard’s smooth, creamy velvety-ness centre stage
FEATURE WORDS, RECIPES AND FOOD STYLING EMILY GUSSIN PHOTOGRAPHS INDIA WHILEY-MORTON
Crème de la crème
In simplest terms, custard is the result of thickening liquid (usually milk and/or cream) with eggs – but that undersells this brilliant and versatile concoction. When I was at cookery school, there was a time when we were making a type of custard every day – to pour on puds or fill pastries and tarts, as a base for chilled or baked desserts and, of course, for ice cream. Although I’m glad those custard cookery days are behind me, I appreciate what I learned. The rules for success have become second nature and I still enjoy the process of transforming a few simple ingredients into something smooth and velvety.
THE BACK STORY
Custard’s been popular since the Middle Ages in Europe, when baked custard tarts were the height of culinary prowess – the word itself stems from ‘croustade’, the French for pastry crust.
As a rule, there are three ways of cooking custards to thicken them:
1 Stirred – the kind that’s thickened on the hob
2 Baked – where the thickening takes place in the oven
3 Steamed – where the custard is set in a container over or in a pan of simmering water
The next main differentiation for sweet custard (which has sugar and usually vanilla added) is thin versus thick – or, to use the French terms, crème anglaise versus crème pâtissière. The key addition (to crème pat) is starch, usually in the form of flour or cornflour, which stabilises the custard by coating the egg proteins. That’s why you can bring the custard to the boil and thicken it more without scrambling.
The pouring kind
Thin custard (crème anglaise) is for pouring, incorporating into a dessert (think trifle and bread and butter pudding)… or drinking straight from the jug! You can also set it firm with gelatine, bake it into a crème caramel or freeze and churn it to create ice cream.
The thick stuff
Known as crème pâtissière, this is brilliant for filling eclairs, doughnuts and tarts – it needs to be thick so it stays in place. Crème pat can be taken a step further, too – either to lighten or enrich it:
1 Crème mousseline has butter added at the end to give a velvety finish
2 Crème légère has whipped cream folded in to lighten it
3 Crème diplomat adds gelatine to make the mixture more stable
4 Crème chiboust has Italian meringue folded in to gi
