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Experimental Custard
Oct. 30th, 2020 06:48 pmI felt like having a hot sweet drink last night, but I've been really overdoing hot chocolate lately and I'm bored with trying to dress it up, so I thought I'd experiment a bit.
"What if custard, but as a beverage?" I asked myself. A cursory search revealed that this was not exactly a revolutionary concept, but it did mostly turn up Southern Christmas recipes that seemed to fall into a couple categories: recipes to feed 12, with booze in them, or recipes that were "healthy" and did not have heavy cream. I decided to just wing it instead since I only wanted to make about two servings. Here's what I ended up doing.
Custard, But You Drink It
Things I'd change: It was 9 pm and I did not feel like separating an egg. It turned out fine, but I probably should have gone ahead and separated the egg and just used the yolk. Straining the egg into the mix was sort of sloppy and produced a drink that was mostly free of lumps, but not ideal. If I did this again I'd use an egg yolk, temper it, and strain the mix at the end of cooking, like you normally would with custard.
The flavor profile was also very simple and I felt it could have used a little something. Realistically whatever would work in custard normally would work well here. Maybe a little orange peel and cinnamon?
"What if custard, but as a beverage?" I asked myself. A cursory search revealed that this was not exactly a revolutionary concept, but it did mostly turn up Southern Christmas recipes that seemed to fall into a couple categories: recipes to feed 12, with booze in them, or recipes that were "healthy" and did not have heavy cream. I decided to just wing it instead since I only wanted to make about two servings. Here's what I ended up doing.
Custard, But You Drink It
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1/4 cup heavy cream
- 1 tbsp granulated sugar
- nutmeg, freshly grated, to taste (I used something in the ballpark of 1/4 tsp, with a little extra sprinkled on at the end)
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 egg, beaten
- Combine the milk, cream, sugar, vanilla, and grated nutmeg in a saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally.
- While the mixture heats, in a small bowl lightly beat the whole egg.
- When the mixture has come to a simmer, temper the egg by adding in 1/4 cup of mixture, 1 tbsp at a time, stirring continuously.
- Strain the egg mixture into the pan with the rest of the mix and cook a further 5 or so minutes over medium heat, stirring continuously, until it's thickened up a bit.
- Let it cool a little and decant into two cups or mugs - whatever you'd use for hot chocolate.
Things I'd change: It was 9 pm and I did not feel like separating an egg. It turned out fine, but I probably should have gone ahead and separated the egg and just used the yolk. Straining the egg into the mix was sort of sloppy and produced a drink that was mostly free of lumps, but not ideal. If I did this again I'd use an egg yolk, temper it, and strain the mix at the end of cooking, like you normally would with custard.
The flavor profile was also very simple and I felt it could have used a little something. Realistically whatever would work in custard normally would work well here. Maybe a little orange peel and cinnamon?
