Baked custard

When I was a little girl, sometimes, not very often, my Nana would make a Baked Custard. I really loved it. I just have such happy taste-memories of that Baked Custard. The thing is, a baked custard is not to everyone's taste, and I completely understand why. I think it's the eggy-ness of some of them, and I am pretty sure that Nana's was eggy, but as a child this didn't bother me. Making it myself for the first time, I wasn't convinced I was going to be as enamoured with it as I was when there was not a lot of food I really liked, so would dive into something like this as being the best of an ordinary selection.



I could have gone with an egg-white free version, which would have left me with a smooth and silky custard, but then it wouldn't have been like the austere version I wanted to recreate. I went with The Australian Women's Weekly once again, a new book titled appropriately Cheap and Cheerful, my Nana and Poppa never had a lot of money so things couldn't be wasted and nothing was fancy. I know that this recipe isn't the same as Nana's, using an egg yolk and not the white wouldn't make sense to Nana. I did adjust the dairy by adding some cream in place of a portion of the milk too. The nutmeg on the top though? That's something that is cemented in my taste-memory of this dish. So, here is my ever-so-slightly updated version of my Nana's Baked Custard.



Baked Custard

500ml (2 metric cups) milk
125ml (1/2 metric cup) cream
1 egg yolk
80g (1/3 metric cup) castor sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
grated fresh nutmeg

Preheat oven to 160C.

Bring milk and cream almost to the boil in medium saucepan, or do as I did and pop it in a Pyrex jug and zap it in the microwave for 4 minutes (my microwave's not all that powerful).

Whisk eggs, egg yolk, sugar and extract in a medium bowl until just combined, but avoid aerating the mixture.

Gradually whisk the hot milk and cream mixture into the egg mixture. Strain the custard through a sieve into a 1 litre shallow oven proof dish (I used my large Nigella dish). Sprinkle with nutmeg.

Place the dish inside a larger dish and pour boiling water into the larger vessel to come halfway up the sides of the smaller dish. Bake until custard just wobbles in the centre, or when a small sharp knife inserted in the centre comes out clean. I cooked mine for about 35 minutes, which is 10 minutes less than suggested, but I was keen not to end up with a custard that was too firm.

Serves 6, serve warm or cooled with stewed fruit if desired