custard

Custard is a variety of culinary preparations based on sweetened milk, cheese, or cream cooked with egg or egg yolk to thicken it, and sometimes also flour, corn starch, or gelatin. Depending on the recipe, custard may vary in consistency from a thin pouring sauce () to the thick pastry cream ('''''') used to fill éclairs. The most common custards are used in custard desserts or dessert sauces and typically include sugar and vanilla; however, savory custards are also found, e.g., in quiche.

==Preparation== Custard is usually cooked in a double boiler (), or heated very gently in a saucepan on a stove, though custard can also be steamed, baked in the oven with or without a water bath, or even cooked in a pressure cooker. Custard preparation is a delicate operation because a temperature increase of leads to overcooking and curdling. Generally, a fully cooked custard should not exceed ; it begins setting at . A water bath slows heat transfer and makes it easier to remove the custard from the oven before it curdles. Adding a small amount of cornflour (known in Canada and the US as 'corn starch') to the egg-sugar mixture stabilises the resulting custard, allowing it to be cooked in a single pan as well as in a double-boiler. A water bath may be used to precisely control temperature.