Foundations no.6 - Egg Yolk Custard

I'm not sure I can imagine a life without custard. It seeps into so many recipes and cultures. It never stops flowing into trifles and over crumbles.

As well as creating custard to pour lavishly over your dessert, this method (and variations upon it) can be used to make a stirred custard base for ice cream. And that's before we even look at baked custards like crème brûlée, custard tarts, crème pâtissière style concoctions or relatives like lemon curd.

Yet traditional custard can be a bit daunting - all the talk of curdling, lumps and long stirring times often put people off (and, it seems, a rather strong attachment in the UK to custard powder). Being able to make an egg-thickened custard is a great skill to have, which is why I chose it for this series.

Though you can use vanilla extract as flavouring, there's nothing quite like infusing custards with a proper vanilla pod. Above I've shown my method for splitting and scraping a pod. The photos run l-r, top to bottom.

1/ Take your pod and place it on a chopping board. Hold it down then run your knife along the pod at an angle to flatten it - it may be easier to use the blunt side of your knife.

2/ Insert your knife into the middle of the pod, then pull down along it, splitting it. It can help to press lightly on top of the knife with a finger as it moves.

3/ Run the knife down the inside of each side, removing the seeds.

4/ Add both the seeds and the scraped pod to the pan.

When you want to start making your custard, you need to get everything ready.

For my custard (based on this recipe) I had 300ml milk, 1 vanilla pod, 5 egg yolks, 25g caster sugar and 50ml double cream.

In particular, your yolks need to be in a bowl by the stove (as you can see, I'd run out so a big teacup had to do) with a whisk handy (the first one I tried was too big for my teacup, so do check). It's also helpful to have the cream in a jug big enough to hold all the custard (i.e. not the one pictured...) and to have a sieve on hand.

Add the milk and sugar to the pan with the vanilla pod. Place over a medium-high heat and briefly whisk to release the seeds and help the vanilla infuse.

When it starts to steam, you're ready to temper the egg yolks. Turn the heat off.

Start by whisking the yolks to break them up. Then slowly pour in about 1/3 of the hot milk, constantly whisking the yolks.

Once you've added the 1/3 milk, quickly give the yolk mixture an extra whisk.

Return the yolk mixture to the pan, whisking as you add it. Scrape all the last drops into the pan with a spatula.

Remove the whisk from the pan and exchange it for a wooden spoon (I find a spatula doesn't hold the coating like a spoon, making it hard to test). Turn the heat back on under the pan - a low to medium heat should be enough. I would start low and then increase another time if you're happy - it will take a bit longer but is worth it if you're nervous.

Stir constantly over the heat until the custard thickens, making sure you scrape the corners and bottom to stop lumps forming. When you remove the spoon at first, the custard won't coat the back at all (see below, left).

Once it's thick enough, it will coat the back of the spoon and you will be able to draw a clearly visible line through it, as you can see on the right. (It's not normally blotchy - they seemed to have formed around clumps of vanilla seeds - butP it's the thickness you're looking for).

When you're happy with the thickness, strain the custard into the jug containing the cream and stir well. You need to strain the custard to catch the chalaza (the little connecting threads between the yolk and white) and any little lumps that have formed.

The process of straining and the cold cream will also quickly stop the cooking. You can also sit the jug in a bath of ice water - ice cream recipes often include this step. Cover the surface of the custard with clingfilm so a skin doesn't form.

I should note that I generally use a recipe for custard that doesn't call for the blanching the egg yolks and sugar beforehand. Many recipes do and if you're making crème pâtissière or similar, you will need to. I haven't included it above but you essentially just whisk the two together until very pale and thick before adding the milk. Be careful to start whisking the sugar in immediately - if left on top of the yolks the sugar will 'burn' them, forming lumps.

Four recipes that use this technique:

Mixed Berry Meringue with Custard
Buttered Pecan and Butterscotch Ice Cream
Mint Choc Chip Ice Cream
Rich Vanilla Ice Cream

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This is the last post of my Foundations series. The first post was on rubbing in to create pastry. The second covered brown butter, followed by a third on creaming butter and sugar, a forth about icing cakes and a fifth looking at chocolate ganache.

The Guild of Food Writers Awards

Last night I won the first Food Blog of the Year award at the Guild of Food Writers Awards party in London.

I can’t begin to describe what an honour it is. I never thought I’d win. I still can’t believe I have.

It was a lovely evening, filled with lots of familiar (mainly from book flaps and TV, I barely knew anyone) and new faces. It all seems like a dream. I even had to make a totally impromptu speech to all 330 people - hopefully I didn’t embarrass myself too much.

I don’t have any photos from the night yet so the photos are of my trophy in its home on my brand new mantelpiece. I had to polish it before I took the photograph as I stubbornly refused to put it down all evening (much to the despair of my wrists, it’s terribly heavy) so it was smeared with greasy canapé fingerprints and oh-god-I’m-nervous sweaty palms (I’m all about the glamour).

In case you’re interested (or are new to Poires au Chocolat– the last few pages of posts have been a bit different as I’ve been away), here are the five posts from 2011 that were under consideration by the judges:

Dusky Caramel and Raspberry Crêpe Cake
Apple and Quince Pie
Caramel Popcorn
Ginger Root Bundt Cake
Plain Scones with Clotted Cream and Raspberry Jam

There’s one more Foundations post to come on Friday – after that I’ll return to normal recipe posts.

Finally - thank you. I wouldn’t be where I am without my readers.

Foundations no.5 - Chocolate Ganache

Ganache is a great playground to experiment in. There are so many ways to personalize and adapt the technique.

The first way is to try different liquid combinations. The gratuitous food porn shot above features a coconut milk ganache. Then there's half cream and half crème fraîche in a white chocolate ganache. Spiced water in deep, dark chocolate sauce. A splash of buttermilk, a touch of tea. The different water and fat contents give a variety of thicknesses and flavours.

Play around with ratios and you can have a pouring sauce, a cake glaze, a slick icing, a truffle and many other things. Add more liquid to thin the mixture and more chocolate to thicken it (funnily enough). Keep the serving temperature in mind - ganache thickens as it cools. It's so versatile.

The flavour will, of course, also depend on the chocolate. I usually use the most expensive chocolate I can afford - but then on one occasion I tried a Dairy Milk & single cream ganache and was utterly addicted (try it in a small pot with a light sprinkle of sea salt). Rules are made to be broken.

In this example I used 150g dark chocolate (72%), 125ml of double cream, 25ml of buttermilk and 1 tablespoon of brown sugar.

There are two ways to incorporate the cream/liquid into the chocolate. The way I've always used - and the faster way - is to heat the cream and then pour it over chopped chocolate, as you'll see here.

At Cordon Bleu they used a second method where you incorporate warmed cream into already melted chocolate. This might betray a lack of sophistication but I couldn't tell the difference between the finished ganaches. Leaving the hot cream sitting over the chocolate for a minute means it starts to melt anyway (which takes the heat out of the cream - if you use melted chocolate the cream needs to be cooler) and means less time and washing up.

Prepare the chocolate and put it into a big bowl - the chunks need to be fairly small (as you can see a few photos above).

Put the liquid and any additions over a medium heat and stir together - usually any sweeteners will be added to the cream. I like a bit of brown sugar when I'm using cream. Heat it until it just starts steaming - I look for little wisps curling out from the edges.

Pour the liquid over the chocolate.

If you wanted, you could infuse the cream (or any other liquid you're using) with spices or other flavours, then strain it into the chocolate bowl.

Use a spatula to push any pieces of chocolate under the liquid that are still poking out. Leave to stand for a minute or so.

Start stirring the mixture in the middle, using small circular motions. At first it'll look like nothing is really happening (as above), but then a rich dark swirl will start to form...

Keep stirring, incorporating more and more of the chocolate into the cream.

I used to use a whisk to make ganache. I think it makes it slightly easier to get any last lumps out - but it does mean you incorporate lots of little bubbles. These are a pain for almost every application of ganache so now I use a spatula.

Keep stirring until the ganache is homogenous. It should be gloriously shiny.

Like custard and ice cream, ganache is an emulsion of fat-in-water. This is why it tastes so rich and creamy, even when you use water. It is also why it can start to split if you mistreat it. As you can see below, it can look a little dodgy around the edges but keep stirring. It should come together.

At the end some recipes call for a bit of room temperature butter to be stirred in. I don't usually do this as in my mind it has enough fat already and doesn't make a huge difference. You can also add other things at this point - for instance I added the whisky to the ganache for my Beautiful and Damned Cake.

Cool the ganache a little (for instance if you're using it to ice a cake or pour over something) or a lot (if you're going to scoop truffles out of it).

Four recipes that use this technique:

Honeybee Chocolate Cake
Poires Belle Helene
Muscovado Truffles
Malteser Layer Cake

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This is the fifth post of my Foundations series. The first post focused on rubbing in to make pastry. The second looked at brown butter, followed by a third on creaming butter and sugar and a forth about icing cakes. The next post, on the 1st of June, will focus on egg yolk custard.