Eighteenth century glass custard cup

18^th century

Custard Creams

In the eighteenth century, plain custards were served in delicate little custard glasses. They would be served with jellies, syllabubs and other creamy puddings.

To make a common Custard

Take a quart of good cream, set it over a slow fire, with a little cinnamon, and four ounces of sugar; when it has boiled take it off the fire; beat the yolks of eight eggs, put to them a spoonful of orange flower water, to prevent the cream from cracking, stir them in by degrees as your cream cools, put the pan over a very slow fire, stir them carefully one way till it is almost boiling then put into cups and serve them up.

Elizabeth Raffald, The Experienced English Housekeeper, 1782

Makes 6 small cups or glasses

4 egg yolks

1 teaspoon orange flower water

425 ml (15 fl oz) thick (double) cream

20 g (¾ oz) raw sugar

1 cinnamon stick

Whisk the egg yolks with the orange flower water in a large bowl. In a medium saucepan, bring the cream, sugar and cinnamon to a simmer. Remove the cinnamon stick. Pour a little of the hot cream mixture into the egg yolk mixture and whisk thoroughly. Now continue to add the hot cream mixture in batches, whisking constantly, until it is fully incorporated and you get a smooth custard.

Pour the mixture back into the saucepan, put it over low heat and stir with a spatula until just thickened, making sure the eggs don’t scramble. Remove from the heat and allow to cool a little in the saucepan until the custard is cold enough to scoop into glasses or small teacups.

Dust some mace or nutmeg on the custards before serving.

Almond custard

To make this into an almond custard, omit the orange flower water and whisk the egg yolks. Crush 50 g (1¾ oz) blanched almonds with 1 teaspoon of rosewater using a mortar and pestle and mix this with the cream before bringing it to a simmer with the sugar and cinnamon. Remove from the heat, strain and proceed to mix the hot cream mixture with the eggs as above. For a more marzipan flavour, add a few blanched apricot kernels to the mix.