I have probably said this before and it still holds true—getting Devansh to eat eggs is a Herculean task. So when his friend’s mom told me how easy it is to make caramel custard at home I was thrilled because eggs are very well disguised in the custard. I looked up a few recipes on the Internet as well and they all looked easy. Only glitch in all these recipes was the amount of sugar. I don’t think adding 4-5 tbsp of sugar in one serving of baby’s or toddler’s meal is such a good idea. So as usual, I decided to go for the healthier option—jaggery. Of course I had to use sugar for the caramel topping but I used jaggery to sweeten the custard. So I’d say this is a healthy dessert despite the one tbsp of sugar used for topping.
The custard turned out well except that the sides were not as smooth as I would have liked. I probably should have sieved the mixture as I saw in some videos. You know what; I’ll make this custard again and update the recipe when I figure out how to get a smooth texture for the custard. I will post about the update on my Facebook page. So if you haven’t liked it yet, click LIKE now. ;-)
Caramel Custard Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 egg
- 1 tbsp powdered or caster sugar preferably organic
- 1 cup whole milk
- Approx. 2 tbsp jaggery preferably organic
- 4-5 drops of alcohol-free vanilla essence
Instructions
- Heat a non-stick pan, add sugar, and then add 1-2 tsp water on the sugar. (These days I use organic sugar which has really fine granules, so I don’t need to powder it.)
- Keep stirring the sugar as it starts to melt and change color.
- Turn off heat when the sugar turns light brown in color.
- Pour the caramelized sugar in the custard cup/container immediately. You need to let this set for about 5 minutes, so do this first before getting the milk ready. (I didn’t have custard cups, so I used a steel bowl.)
- Heat half of the milk and dissolve jaggery into it. (Unlike sugar, jaggery is not easy to measure. Also, sweetness of jaggery varies. So use your judgment while using jaggery. You don’t want the mixture too sweet; it is best to taste the milk after adding jaggery to determine the sweetness.)
- Break an egg in a bowl, add vanilla essence, and then beat the egg. In some countries, vanilla essence contains high amount of alcohol. Please ensure that you use an alcohol-free vanilla essence.
- Now add milk. First add the plain milk. Next, add the milk with jaggery dissolved into it. Continuously whisk the mixture as you are adding warm milk because you don’t want the egg to get cooked. Otherwise you can let the jaggery+milk mixture come to room temperature before adding it to the beaten egg.
- Ensure that the caramelized sugar is set in the mold and then pour the milk and egg mixture in it.
- Add just enough water in a pressure cooker such that less than half of the mold is immersed in water. You can cover the top of the mold with a silver foil if you like, but I didn’t do that.
- Now close the lid of the pressure cooker, and steam the mixture for 15-20 minutes on low flame. Remember, for steaming you will need to remove the whistle of the pressure cooker.
- Insert a knife in the custard to ensure that it is properly done. It should come out clean. If it doesn’t, allow the mixture to steam for a few more minutes.
- Allow the mold to cool and then refrigerate it for at least 10-15 minutes.
- Take the mold out of the refrigerator and place the serving plate on top.
- Now flip the mold and plate such that the plate is at the bottom and the mold on top.
- If the mold doesn’t come off easily, gently tap it till the custard separates from the mold.
- The caramel custard is ready to be served. If you are serving the custard to smaller babies, don’t serve it too cold.
Looks so yummy!
http://www.volatilespirits.com
U can add a pinch of nutmeg pd for easy digestion in babies
Thanks for the tip Sonia :-)