I love old-fashioned baked custards so decided to try a hundred-year-old recipe for Raisin Custard. The raisins are on the bottom of the custard. I want to say that they sank to the bottom, but I think that the recipe author intended for there to be plain custard on the top and a raisin-custard mixture on the bottom.
The Raisin Custard was very delicate, but the recipe didn’t call for any sugar, so the custard was not sweet (though the raisins added a bit of sweetness when I got to the bottom).
Here’s the original recipe:
Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:
Raisin Custard
2 eggs
2 cups milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2/3 cup raisins, coarsely chopped
Preheat oven to 325° F. Put eggs in mixing bowl and beat until smooth. Add milk, salt, and nutmeg; beat until thoroughly combined. Pour mixture into custard cups. Place the custard cups in a pan with hot water that comes to about an inch below the top of the cups ( 4 – 6 custard cups will be needed. The number of custard cups needed will vary depending upon the size of the custard cups.) Bake for 60-90 minutes or until a knife inserted in center of the custard comes out clean. May be served warm or cold.
Love a custard, but I know there are a lot of folks who don’t like raisins!
In hundred-year-old cookbooks, there are many recipes that call for raisins. I think that they were more popular back then than what they are now. Tastes apparently have changed.
I am not a raisin fan, but I do like custard.
I like that custards are fairly nutritious for a dessert.
The only place raisins have is in mincemeat!!! That being said I think dried cranberries might be good in this.
Dried cranberries probably would work well with this.
Yes, I think I’d give this a go.
If you like both custards and raisins, I think that you’d enjoy this recipe.
I wonder if the raisins were chopped up very fine that they might stay suspended a little more and provide more sweetness overall to the custard. Also, I think as a kid the dried fruit we had always seemed drier than what we get now which would mean they could potentially soak up more of the custard mix. It does sound good and I agree with the idea of trying some other dried fruit in this. I am thinking dried cherries.
I cut each raisin into 3 or 4 pieces. Maybe it would have worked better if I cut them finer. When I made this recipe, I thought about trying to stir the custard part way through the baking to get the raisins suspended, but the top had begun to thicken (and I would have messed that up if I stirred it) while the rest of the custard still seemed too juicy to suspend the raisin pieces.
How very interesting. Maybe they forgot to add the sugar in the recipe ingredients? tho I am always happy to have less sweet.
cheers
sherry
Maybe – with this recipe it’s difficult to tell whether it was intentional or an oversight.
Yummy!! It is similar to my custard recipe but mine calls for sugar…
I think that I’d prefer your recipe. In my opinion, a little sugar would be a good addition to this recipe.
That’s a new one on me. Believe me it’s a rarity if I haven’t heard of a custard dish.
A fun thing about browsing through hundred-year-old cookbooks is that I sometimes come across recipes that aren’t commonly found in newer cookbooks. Not sure why some foods may become less popular across the years.
Probably too complex to cook, not available as a convenience version and fashion. Keep finding those wonderful dishes and recipes 👍🏻