Colonial America Recipes: Easy-to-Make Custards

With some ingenuity and creativity, many cooks have all the ingredients right on their kitchen shelves to whip up some great old-fashioned custard.

These authentic recipes based on directions from Godey’s 1854 will help you get started.

Introduction to Custard Preparation

Custard is always eaten cold, and either poured over fruit tarts, or served up separately in custard-cups; in each of which a macaroon steeped in wine, and laid at the bottom, will be found a good addition. The flavoring may likewise be altered according to taste, by using a different kind of essence, the name of which it then acquires; as of lemon, orange, maraschino, vanilla, etc.

It is almost needless to say that cream or a portion of it will make it richer than mere milk. It should be recollected that in custard, when made as cream, and eaten as usually called “raw,” the whites of the eggs are never all used; but they may be devoted to many other purposes.

The French mode of making it is to measure the number of cups which are to be filled, and use nearly that quantity of milk or cream simmering it upon the fire until beginning to boil, then adding about half an ounce of powdered sugar to [per] each cup, with lemon-peel, bay leaves, or almond-powder; then take the yolk of an egg to [per] each small cup, beat them up with the milk, fill the cups, place in a vase of boiling water [double-boiler] until the custards become firm.

Custard Cream

• Boil half a pint of new milk with a piece of lemon-peel, not very large, a stick of cinnamon, and eight lumps [teaspoons] of white sugar (should cream be employed instead of milk, there will be no occasion to strain it)
• Beat the yolks, say of four eggs
• Strain the milk through coarse muslin, or a hair-sieve [use a regular kitchen strainer to remove the lemon-peel]
• Mix the eggs and milk very gradually together
• Simmer it gently on the fire, stirring it until it thickens, but removing it the moment it begins to boil, or it will curdle  (a cheap and excellent sort is made by boiling three pints of new milk with a bit of lemon-peel, a bit of cinnamon, two or three bay-leaves, and sweetening it)
• Meanwhile, rub down smooth a large spoonful of rice-flour into a cup of cold milk, and mix with it four yolks of eggs well beaten
The copyright of the article Colonial America Recipes: Easy-to-Make Custards in 19th Century Recipes is owned by Pat Williams. Permission to republish Colonial America Recipes: Easy-to-Make Custards in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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