Custard

Ingredients

• one gallon of rich new milk
• the yolks of sixteen eggs
• two cupfuls of pulverized white sugar
• two cupfuls of brown sugar burnt

Method

1. 1

   Boil the milk.

2. 2

   Beat the yolks of the eggs until light, then add the white sugar.

3. 3

   Burn the brown sugar in a skillet.

4. 4

   Remove the milk from heat and mix with the egg mixture gradually.

5. 5

   Return to heat and stir until thickened.

6. 6

   Mix in the burnt sugar until smooth, adjusting for color.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Virginia Cookery-book (1884) by Mary Stuart Smith, page 98. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

one gallon of rich new milk; meanwhile beat up as light as possible the yolks of sixteen eggs; after they are light add to them, and beat in, two cupfuls of pulverized white sugar. At the same time have an assistant put two cupfuls of brown sugar, dry, into a skillet, and place it on the fire where it VJIIGINIA COOKERY-BOOK. 207 may bum. When the milk boils remove it quickly from the fire, and add it to the eggs, a little at a time, stirring until all is mixed. Then return to the fire, and stir until it thickens. The sugar will have now been burnt very black, some one having been stirring and watching it all the while. Take the custard from the fire and pour a little of it into the burnt sugar, which will sputter and send out smoke, but this must not be minded ; keep on adding a little and a little till the whole is smooth and the skillet full, then pour its contents gradually into the main bowl of custard, but pause and taste when it looks the color of strong coffee, for if darker than this the sugar has been too much burnt. The art of making cara- mel depends upon burning the sugar to the precisely proper extent. If too little burnt the cream is mawkish ; if too much, bitter and brackish ; if precisely right, it is delightful. "Practice makes perfect," and we recom- mend the recipe as worth trying. Burning the sugar too little is remedied by taking another cup of sugar and burning that most decidedly; burning too much, by adding cream or more custard un- til the proper degree has been reached. But it is most advisable to take great pains to be right in the first place, if trouble and annoyance would be avoided. Made thus : For one gallon of custard take one gallon of milk, two cupfuls of white sugar, sixteen yolks of eggs, two cup- f uls of brown sugar bur

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.