Nicole’s Recipes

This recipe came to me from a quirky client of mine, age 89. She eats it to soothe an upset stomach, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I have to agree it’s pretty good. I think I could eat it all day too.

6-7 eggs (free range make a difference)
a heaping 1/2 cup sugar
4 cups milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
dash salt
dash nutmeg

Beat your eggs to death. You want them uniformly beaten, not with pieces of white and yolk floating about. I set mine in my mixer and let it go for awhile. Farm eggs with bright yellow yolks make a particularly rich custard. I tried it with pale store eggs at Maxine’s, then my free range eggs the next day. The difference was definitely noticeable.

Then, put in a rounded 1/2 cup of sugar. Add your milk, salt and vanilla and stir some more to incorporate. This is where good vanilla makes a big difference too. Don’t bother with imitation or really cheap vanilla. Most of the flavor from this comes from the vanilla.

Pour your mixture into a casserole dish or corning ware dish- or whatever pretty dish you have. Sprinkle the top with nutmeg. Maxine uses cinnamon sometimes too.

Set that down in another pan with 1-2 inches of water in it. Bake at 300 for about 2 hours. I really actually am only guessing how long- you can tell it’s done when it doesn’t jiggle as much AND a knife in the center comes out clean.

**Don’t overcook and don’t set your temperature too high. Also don’t underbeat your eggs. Maxine’s daughter made some for her and she did both of those things and the custard had a gross crust on the top that was like scrambled eggs.**

I like this custard best cold. So I let it cool on a rack, then pop it in the fridge and serve it up cold. It’s good with berries, whipped cream, or just plain. You can also make it in individual custard cups and it wouldn’t take so long to cook. I think you could heat up your milk on the stove and then make it like normal to shorten cooking time. Much of the cooking time is just the time it takes for the oven to heat up the milk. I just put it in and wait. I can tell when to look in there because I can smell it cooking in the last 20 minutes.

Hope you enjoy it.