How to Make Stovetop Custard

How to make an easy custard right on your stove!

This classic custard is a great way to fill bellies with lots of eggs!

It’s made on the stove — you don’t need to stick it in the oven and hope that it sets!

This recipe is low in sugar.

Unlike other custard recipes, this recipe uses the entire egg instead of just the yolks! There’s zero egg waste!

Get the recipe below!

Ingredients:

6 eggs
2 cups of milk
6 TBSP butter
4 TBSP flour
1/2 sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Instructions:

1. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together your eggs and flour.
2. In a saucepan on medium heat, warm up your milk and sugar. Do not boil — heat to about 140 degrees farenheit.
3. Very, very slowly pour your hot milk into your egg and flour mixture while whisking quickly. Do not pour the hot milk into the eggs too quickly or you will have scrambled eggs!
4. Pour your hot custard back into your saucepan. Heat on medium heat while whisking until the mixture is thick. This takes about 5 minutes. Do not stop whisking your mixture until it has become thick!
5. Once your mixture resembles hot, thick pudding, remove from heat and mix in your butter and vanilla.

Should I use just the egg yolks or the whole egg?

Use the entire egg — white AND yolk!

While many custards use only the egg yolk, I hate the thought of wasting all those protein packed egg whites!

I’m not a fan of food waste while cooking. Use all parts of the egg while making this custard!

Help! My eggs curdled!

It’s important to temper your eggs while making this custard!

If you pour in your hot milk into your eggs too quickly, it will cook your eggs!

You will also want to whisk your eggs very quickly while you add your hot milk into your eggs.

Whisking quickly will help bring your eggs up to temperature gradually, instead of having “hot spots” that can change your eggs to scrambled!

So that’s the trick — add the hot milk VERY slowly (just a trickle at a time!), and WHISK well!

Help! My custard won’t thicken!

After you have added your hot milk into your egg mixture, you will want to pour this mixture BACK into your saucepan and turn your stove back to medium heat!

Whisk quickly on medium heat for another 5 minutes.

Basically, just when you feel like your mixture will NEVER thicken into custard, that’s the time it will finally become a nice thick custard.

If you have mixed your mixture for 5 minutes and it STILL will not become custard, switch to medium high heat and keep mixing!

If you’re at a complete loss with your custard and are ready to throw it all away because it won’t thicken, there is a last resort effort you can do to save your custard.

To save broken custard, in a separate pan, melt and mix together 2 TBSP butter with 2 TBSP of flour.

Add the melted/combined butter and flour into your broken custard.

Reheat your custard while whisking for another 5 minutes. This should fix any broken custard!

My custard is a little bit thick, but not as thick as I’d like it to be!

If you wish your custard was a little bit more thick — don’t worry, it will thicken even more once it has cooled completely!

I usually serve my custard warm to my family and top it with berries. It’s our favorite way to eat it!

But — if you’d like to use this custard as a dessert for pastries or something similar, just stick it in the fridge and it will solidify!

Can I add even less sugar to this custard?

Yes!

When I make this custard, I often put only 1/4 cup of sugar into it.

When our chickens are laying lots of eggs, I count this as a “health food” — a fun way to get some extra protein into bellies in a way that doesn’t TASTE eggy!

How long can I keep the leftovers?

If you have any leftover custard (a rare phenomenon in our home), you can keep it in a sealed container in your refrigerator for one week.