Custard for your table by James Beard!

Custard is a perfect dessert choice for the home baker. It all starts with eggs, I used a mix of duck and chicken eggs - you can see the dramatic difference in the size and color of the yolks. For a surefire, no-fail recipe, I turned to "American Cookery" by James Beard.



Ingredients:

*5 egg yolks * 1/2 cup sugar * 1 tsp vanilla * 1/8 tsp salt * 2 1/2 cups milk * nutmeg

-Beat together the eggs, sugar, vanilla and salt for a few minutes in your mixer. -Scald the milk and add it very slowly to the bowl while continuing a slow mix. -Pour the mixture into 6 custard cups setting in a glass pan with a 1 inch water bath.-top with nutmeg

Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes, until a knife inserted in the middle will come out dry. This time is flexible, depending on your oven. You change it up by leaving out the nutmeg and instead topping the custard with 1/2 cup flaked coconut before baking.

Custard cups and more at Chefs catalogue



Remove the pan from the oven and allow it to cool to room temp before refrigerating the cups - if you like your dessert cool. Speaking of cool, how good will you feel when you serve your family this great treat. In this day of prepackaged pudding and jello try something different. Make it yourself, from scratch and bask in the appreciation that will soon come your way. .....I can hardly wait for my kids to say, "wow this is good!"