The Dairy-Free Zone. Good food, no cow juice.

Custard

Achieving dairy-free custard which will pass muster in comparison with the real thing is possible. It's taken me about two years of tweaking to get the recipe right, but now I have something which even sceptical non-dairy-free relations have to admit tastes very much like proper custard.

For those of you with more time than sense, no young children in the family and no pregnant women or elderly people who will be eating your efforts, there is always the 'real' option. Yes, it does work dairy free and is no more effort than the original. Sadly it is no less effort either! Therefore, for a day-to-day custard here is how to make scrummy instant custard.

These quantities will make a pint, partly on the "is it possible to have too much custard?" principle and partly because custard tends not to be something you make just for one person (there again, one person, one pint of custard - it's up to you). I measure out the quantities of liquid in a pint jug, that way getting the proportions right is easy

Ingredients

2 tbsps Bird's Custard Powder (seems to taste better than own brands)
1 tablespoon demerara sugar (MUCH better than granulated sugar)
8 floz Provamel Soya Dream (shake well)
12 floz Rice Dream (less starchy than soya milk)
˝ teaspoon vanilla extract (reduce if using Vanilla Rice Dream)

Method

I always use a saucepan which is NOT non-stick: that way I can use a balloon whisk to beat the living daylights out of any incipient lumps! I keep the Rice Dream box by the cooker while I make the custard just in case it decides to go very thick for some unfathomable reason. If it does, I can add a little more milk as soon as it starts without having to stop stirring to fetch the milk box - which can be disastrous.

Measure the cream and milk into a pint jug and stir to mix them together
Put the custard powder and the sugar in the pan and add about 2 tablespoons of the milk/cream mixture.
Blend until the custard powder has dissolved and you have no lumps left. You may need to add a little more milk from the jug to achieve a smooth result. Don't worry if the mixture tries to go solid, it's just the way cornflour behaves: adding a small amount more of the milk mixture will solve the problem.
Add the rest of the milk mixture in SMALL quantities. Stir in each addition until smooth before adding any more. Rush this bit and you'll guarantee lumps.
Add a couple of drops of vanilla extract. Extract is much nicer than the cheap and nasty flavouring. Lakeland sells a very good one at Ł4 for a 118ml bottle. Yes, it's expensive but it goes on forever as you only use it in tiny amounts.
Now for the whisk. Put the pan on a low heat and stir CONSTANTLY with the whisk You don't have to beat it hard right from the start, but you do need to keep it all moving and heat it gently. There are two reasons for this:
1. custard has a tendency to stick and burn, so keep it gentle and keep it moving
2. non-dairy milks are not all totally heat-stable and believe me you don't want it splitting (lumpy gravy texture crossed with runny scrambled egg!).
As the custard starts to heat up, increase the vigour of the whisking. You'll get some froth on the top to which purists may object, but you shouldn't have lumps. Take your pick: froth or lumps. I know which I prefer!
When the custard is finally coming to the boil, check it for thickness and taste it to see if you have added enough vanilla. Adjust according to personal taste. When it has boiled for about 30 seconds to cook out the cornflour in the custard powder, serve and enjoy.

And there you go: perfect custard! It works very well cold too, for example on trifle.

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