Custard Part 2

Crème Anglaise, pouring custard & ice cream!

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Hello, I’m back with more custard chats! If you didn’t read last week’s newsletter, we ran through all of the different types of custard plus how to make the perfect crème pat, you can read it here. This week we’re focusing on crème Anglaise and English custard, confusingly two phrases that mean exactly the same thing but have some differences.

Let’s start with crème Anglaise. Créme Anglaise is a sauce, usually served hot made from milk, cream, sugar, egg yolks and flavouring (usually vanilla), this is gently heated to around 80°C/175°F until the egg just starts to coagulate and the sauce thickens. The origins of crème Anglaise are somewhat murky, August Escoffier is credited with bringing the recipe back from England after working at The Carlton Hotel in London in the late 1800s but I suspect custard-like sauces have been around for quite some time.

So what’s the difference between this and modern British custard?

The difference is just one ingredient; cornflour. The addition of cornflour not only thickens the sauce to make it lusciously thick but also makes cooking it a whole lot easier. The addition of starch stabilises the egg yolks so that they can tolerate higher temperatures without scrambling.

I couldn’t quite get to the bottom of how and when adding cornflour to custard became standard procedure but the creation of Bird’s Custard Powder seems likely to have something to do with it. The powder was invented by English food manufacturer and chemist Alfred Bird in 1837 for his custard-loving wife Elizabeth. Elizabeth Bird sadly had a severe egg allergy and, thus was not able to partake in the delights of custard, that is until her husband formulated a powder that could be boiled with milk and sugar to create an egg-free custard. And if that’s not romance, I don’t know what is.

Bird’s custard powder is a very simple mixture of cornflour, yellow colouring and vanilla flavouring. It became hugely popular and now many commercially available custards don’t contain any egg at all. Incidentally, Alfred Bird was also the first person to create and distribute baking powder, again, inspired by another of his wife’s allergies, but that’s a deep dive for another time.

Alfred Bird, the man himself.

These days classic British custard is somewhere between crème Anglaise and Bird’s Custard, it’s the best of both worlds with the luscious thick texture of Bird’s custard and the rich, decadence of crème Anglaise.

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Crème Anglaise

Now that we’ve established what it is let’s have a look at how to make it and some trouble shooting.

To make it the process is very similar to that of crème pat, the main difference being that it can’t be heated to above 80°C/175°F. So let’s have a look:

1. Boil the milk with any infusions: Leave the infusions for 1-12 hours depending on how strong you want the flavour and always re-weigh the milk after infusing it, if I’m just using vanilla, I don’t bother but things like tea and herbs can absorb a lot of the liquid.

2. Whisk the yolks, sugar: It’s really important that you whisk the yolks and sugar as soon as they come into contact with each other! The sugar “cooks” the proteins in the yolk and essentially cures it, this starts right away so if you don’t whisk the two instantly you’ll end up with little lumps of cured egg yolk which isn’t what you want.

3. Pour 1/3 of the boiled milk onto the yolk mixure: This is often referred to as a “liaison”, adding just a bit of the boiled milk at a time helps to control the overall temperature of the mixture rather than shocking it with a load of boiling milk which could risk cooking the egg yolks prematurely resulting in a lumpy mess.

4. Pour back into the pan: Unlike crème pat, I don’t bother sieving it at this point as I always sieve it at the end.

5. Gently heat until it coats the back of a spoon: It’s really important to heat up crème Anglaise gently and stir constantly. The egg yolks need to reach at least 80°C/175°F in order for the sauce to thicken but if they reach over 84°C/185°F the lecithin in the yolks will harden and form lumps resulting in an Anglaise that resembles scrambled eggs. To avoid this, keep the Anglaise moving constantly and check the temperature often. As soon as it reaches the correct temperature, pass through a sieve and serve immediately, or chill until you need it.

Overcooked Anglaise

If you have overcooked it, don’t panic! You can usually save it by blending it until smooth, before passing it through a sieve, add a dash of cream if it’s still too thick.

Runny Anglaise

If your Anglaise is looking too runny, it’s likely it didn’t quite get hot enough, thermometers aren’t always 100% reliable so it’s always a good idea to test the Anglaise on the back of a spoon, it should coat the spoon and if you run your finger through it, it should leave a clear line.

Ice Cream

To turn Anglaise into ice cream, all you need to do is chill it and churn it, however you can add a few extra ingredients to fight those ice crystals and make your ice cream extra smooth, I’ve included variations for ice cream in the recipe.

Crème Anglaise

Ingredients - makes 500ml

250g whole milk

150g double cream

Seeds from 1/2 a vanilla pod/1 tbsp vanilla paste

Pinch of salt

60g egg yolk (about 3-4 yolks)

50g caster sugar

For Ice Cream

1 tbsp skimmed milk powder

1 tbsp liquid glucose

Method

1. Bring the milk, cream, vanilla and salt to the boil.

2. Whisk the yolks and sugar together.

3. Pour over 1/3 of the freshly boiled milk and whisk with the yolk mixture.

4. Transfer back into the pan and cook gently, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens and reaches 84°C/185°F.

5. As soon as it’s ready, pass through a sieve, serve immediately or chill.

For Ice Cream

1. Add the glucose and milk powder with the yolks & sugar.

2. Follow instructions as stated.

3. Chill overnight before churning.

4. Churn and serve.

Thank you so much for joining me on this custardy adventure, for paid subscriber’s I’m sharing a peach & raspberry crumble recipe served with thyme infused thick, British custard. You can read it here.

We’ve still got baked custards to cover but you can have too much of a good thing so I’ll be taking a few weeks off custard to focus on some other recipes. Let me know if you’ve got any burning baked custard questions and I’ll be sure to cover them, have a great week!

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