Proper Custard

There's nothing as comforting as a big bowl of proper homemade warm egg custard - stolen by the French but named Creme Anglaise - English cream. Serve it with steamed puddings, baked fruit pies or with your cookies. Custard is just as good cold and, unlike the gelatinous mass made from powder, makes an ideal cold dessert sauce too. I remember Sunday teatime when my mam would chop some bananas into a bowl of warm custard then chill it. Simple and amazing.

Ingredients:

½ pint milk
½ pint double cream
4 oz caster sugar (vanilla sugar if you have any at hand)
8 egg yolks
1 tspn vanilla extract (not essence)
Seeds scraped from one vanilla pod

Method:

1. Place the milk and cream in a saucepan and bring to the boil

2. In the meantime place the other ingredients into a mixing bowl and beat to combine.

3. Pour the boiling liquid into the yolks mix and give it a quick whisk. Return it to the pan and cook over a low heat, stirring constantly, until thickened. For consistency you can buy a probe here - they are worth their weight in gold. You're looking for a reading of 82°c.

And don't forget to keep the vanilla pods for vanilla sugar.