[Sca-cooks] Helen and the Egg Custard Pie

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

All right, I did a little looking around per Johnnae's recommendation,  
and it seems like most people view this Egg Custard Pie as a fairly  
standard baked custard tart.

Standard restaurant-ey wisdom (such as it is) would be to blind-bake 2  
nine-inch (or maybe two eight-inch, if they're "deep-dish") for  
perhaps 10 minutes in a preheated oven at 350°F, and let them cool a  
little. Leave the oven on...

Slowly and gently scald a quart of milk, half-and-half, or cream (I  
often use half-and-half for such jobs). It should have some bubbles  
coming to the surface around the edges, but not come to a boil.

While it's heating, beat six eggs _or_ twelve yolks in a large mixing  
bowl (if you have a bowl with a pouring lip, even better) with 1/2 cup  
sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla extract (or scald a real vanilla bean  
with your milk/cream, or use vanilla sugar, or whatever). If you want  
to be really fastidious you can strain your eggs to remove the little  
chelazae and membranes, but I don't. A pinch of salt here is optional,  
and some people prefer a spice like nutmeg instead of vanilla.

Sloooooooowly pour your milk or cream in a thin stream with one hand,  
into the yolks and sugar mixture, while beating constantly with the  
other. You want to raise the temperature of all without cooking any of  
it. Yet.

Carefully pour your custard into your shells and bake (if things start  
to brown too quickly, you can lower the oven heat to 325°F, or use a  
little strip of foil to protect your crust edges from burning). It'll  
probably take anywhere from 25 to 40 minutes -- generally closer to 25  
-- to bake. The trick is to watch them closely, at least until  
experience shows you what little visual clues to look for. They should  
not bake "until firm", as some recipes suggest: it's pretty much a  
guarantee of overcooking. What you're looking for is for the egg  
protein to set into a matrix that holds all the liquid in in the form  
of a gel, so one of the great tricks is to tap your pie with your  
finger (don't move it all over creation or you'll spill it). Watch the  
shock wave ripply thing, and see if it just randomly sloshes liquid  
all around, or if things sort of snap back into place. The difference  
between liquid and gel is very subtle and can happen in seconds. Other  
tests include a toothpick or knife point, which should not really come  
out clean, but with just a speck or two, rather than being coated with  
custard. And then there's the old instant-read thermometer, which  
should read 140°F. You may get a few little brown spots on top  
(watching how they move when you tap it is one of my standard methods  
of testing doneness these days), and when you remove your tarts from  
the oven, they will have just _barely_ begun to puff up a little bit  
inside their shells: if you see that happening, be ready to take them  
out on a moment's notice. If they puff up too much, they're  
overcooked, the tops become tough, and the custard becomes spongy,  
curdled, and wet instead of moist, and then the fat, sugar, and other  
flavorings sort of seep out of it, leaving behind an insipid, wet,  
spongy mass.

If it passes those tests and isn't solid in the middle, don't worry;  
it'll continue to cook as it cools, and it'll firm up.

Still, this is ultimately a judgement call that takes some experience  
to get right all the time...

HTH,

Adamantius






"Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls,  
when we all ought to worry about our own souls, and other people's  
bellies."
			-- Rabbi Israel Salanter