The Wooden Spoon

I'm going to be live blogging a little experiment. I was talking to my internet gay boyfriend a couple days ago about how much we both love the custard in the clafouti I wrote about in my previous post. We think it would be a great idea to make just the custard. I'll make a few changes to the recipe. To start:
 
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp. fresh orange juice
substitute half the white sugar with brown sugar
decrease the milk 1/2 tsp

Before pouring the batter into a pie dish and putting it in the oven, I tasted the batter. I couldn't taste the vanilla or the orange. I added another 1/2 tsp of both vanilla and orange juice. The vanilla was fine (although you could certainly add more if you like a strong vanilla flavor), but I still couldn't taste the orange juice. In increments of 1/2 tsps., I increased the orange juice to 2 tbls. I could probably add another tsp., but I'm stopping there for now.

Because I decreased the milk by only 1/2 tsp, and used more orange juice than I expected, the batter was looking pretty thin. I added another 2 tbls. flour and whisked it until the batter was smooth and looked like it does when I make a clafouti.

OK, I'm now at two stumbling blocks. I'm treating this like a creme brulee, and I'm not sure what temperature to bake it at. The first thing I did was check the King Arthur's Flour Baker's Companion (the book in which I found the peach clafouti recipe), because they'd have a creme brulee recipe, wouldn't they? No, they don't. This has to be my biggest pet peeve about cookbooks. It doesn't matter what I'm looking for, I can't find it in my favorite cookbooks. Maybe Mark Bittman should change the name of his most famous book from How to Cook Everything to How to Cook a Lot of Things, but Nothing You'll Be Looking For.

My second stumbling block is whether I need a leavener. With the orange  juice, I've added more acid to the batter. Should I use baking soda to counteract it? I'm going on a search. I'll be back in a while.
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OK. Bittman totally come through for me. (This does not negate my previous complaint. I'm still more likely to not find what I'm looking for) He has a recipe for creme brulee and for baked custard; and I found a recipe for custard pie in The Baker's Companion. I don't think I need baking soda, so I'm going to leave that out. On Bittman's recommendation, I added a tsp. of orange zest. All the recipes recommend baking at 300 degrees in a water bath (something else I suspected I would need).

It's in the oven now. I'll check it in 35 minutes, and get back to you soon.
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At 35 minutes, it wasn't quite set, but it was starting to turn a lovely brown on the top. I gave it another 10 minutes, and it's looking perfect. It's cooling now, and it's all I can do not to dive into it.

Part way through this, it occurred to me that it would be just as easy to use a regular custard recipe. After I'm done with this test, I'd like to make a standard custard and compare the two. What I like about this one is I can use 2% milk, which is what I usually have in the house. I'm assuming the flour helps to thicken the custard and set it up. Standard custards don't call for flour, and are made with cream and/or whole milk, neither of which I keep around.

Tasting is next. I'll fill you in then.
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Well I ate a lot of custard today. First, I let it cool for 45 minutes, then tasted it. It had set up fairly well by that point, but it was still a little uneven. The orange overpowered everything else in the custard; also, I think I didn't need the extra 2 tablespoons of flour, because it was already really stiff.

I put the custard in the refrigerator, where it sat for 2-3 hours. Logan and I tasted it, and we both felt that the orange was still overpowering. The texture was consistent throughout by that point, and hard enough that he used a knife to cut it.

I let it sit out for a few more hours, and we tasted it again. The orange had mellowed and I could taste the vanilla. The flavors had melded together nicely by that point, and the texture had improved. However, it's firmer than I wanted or expected.

Here's the full recipe I used today:

3/4 cup + 2 tbls. unbleached, all purpose flour
2 1/2 tbls. packed brown sugar
2 1/2 tbls. sugar
1/2 tsp salt
3 large eggs
Scant 1 1/4 cups  milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 tbls orange juice
1 tsp orange zest

Thoroughly butter a 10" round pan (a pie plate works perfectly) or 6 5-oz custard cups.

Preheat oven to 300.
Start a pan or kettle of water to boil, to prepare a water bath.

In a mixing bowl, whisk together flour, sugars, and salt. In a large mixing bowl or a standing mixer, combine the eggs, milk, orange juice, orange zest, and vanilla. Beat until thoroughly combined. Gradually add the flour mixture into the milk, eggs and vanilla, smoothing out the lumps. Pour batter into pie plate or cups.

Prepare a water bath by placing a towel on the bottom of a baking dish, or any oven-safe vessel large enough to hold the pie plate or custard cups. Place baking vessel into oven, and place pie plate/cups into the baking vessel. Pour boiling water into the baking vessel, enough to cover the sides of the pie plate/custard cups up to about 1" from the top. (You can put the pie plates or cups and the boiling water into the baking vessel before you put everything in the oven, but you're just asking for a huge, and possibly painful, spill.) Bake for 35-45 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean.  Remove the baked custard from vessel and place on a cooling rack. Let it rest on the cooling rack long enough for the custard to set up, about 45 minutes. It can be served warm, cold, or at room temperature.

Logan says this particular custard needs the fruit in order to shine. I agree that it isn't as good on its own as it is with the fruit, but that could be due to the changes I made. If I were to make this again, I would use the amount of flour called for in the original recipe (3/4 cup), use 1 tbls. orange juice, and reduce the milk by 1 tbls.