When my husband and I were on the GAPS Diet last year to improve our gut health, one of our favorite treats hands down was Russian Custard.
Russian Custard is an excellent substitute for cream on fruit. It also works well for any recipe which calls for cream.
Cream, if you recall, is not permitted on the GAPS Diet as it is high in lactose (milk sugar), which is a disaccharide (double sugar) which cannot be digested in a compromised gut environment. Once the gut heals, of course, lactose can be digested easily so the avoidance of cream is only a temporary measure.
In addition to fruit, Russian Custard can be served on its own or with a handful of chopped nuts – soaked overnight in salt water and dehydrated, of course, to vastly improve digestibility.
Never soaked nuts before? It’s a snap. Just mix 1 TBL sea salt in enough filtered water to cover 4 cups of raw nuts of choice. Drain salt water after 8 -12 hours (except for cashews which should only be soaked for 6 hours) and then dry in a warm, 150F oven (dry cashews at 200F). You will be AMAZED at how much easier nuts are to digest and how much tastier they are when you do this.
Ah, so much to talk about with this Traditional Cooking thing!
Getting back to the Russian Custard now ….
The key to Russian Custard is the quality of the eggs you use. Egg yolks are extremely nutritious and easily digested (can you believe some misinformed people still throw them out and make egg white omelets???).
Deep yellow – orange colored egg yolks are one of the highest food sources of choline, a critical nutrient that protects the liver from overconsumption of sugar, refined carbohydrates, and polyunsaturated vegetable oils.
Use of good quality, egg yolks in the diet is a very wise investment of your food budget dollars.
Make sure to buy the best quality eggs you can afford to make your Russian Custard and purchase them locally so that you are supporting small, local farms in your area.
Russian Custard
Serves 4
adapted from Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride MD
Ingredients
8 free range, local eggs
4 tsp raw, local honey
Instructions
Wash eggs gently in warm, soapy water and then dry. Separate egg whites from yolks and set whites aside. In a glass bowl, add the honey to the egg yolks and whip until the mixture thickens and the color lightens to a pale yellow.
Serve immediately with fruit or nuts or add to recipe of choice in place of cream.
* Use up those egg whites by making Real Protein Cookies or Grain Free Angel Food Cake!
Sarah, TheHealthyHomeEconomist.com
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{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
Is honey there for just the sweetness or for consistency as well? My wife is allergic to honey so would this work with stevia?
R
I don’t know if stevia would be a good substitute or not.
After thinking about it more, I’m thinking stevia would not work as the raw honey and the egg yolk whipped together seem to change the consistency of the custard as it thickens and the color changes kind of like what happens when you whip cream into butter. Using stevia would not produce the same effect I do not believe.
Why couldn’t she use a little maple syrup? Different flavor but might work.
Maple syrup might work but maple syrup is a disaccarride (double sugar) so if one is making Russian Custard as a sub for cream, then maple syrup would not be an option. Only honey, date sugar are single sugar molecule sweeteners from what I’ve read. I don’t think date sugar would work as it is granular. But, if someone is not on GAPS and wants to use maple syrup, that might work as an option though I don’t know if the custard would thicken up like it does when the egg yolks are whipped with raw honey.
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Try Agave nectar.
But did you know that the process in which they create agave syrup is the exact same one by which high fructose corn syrup is produced?
That’s right. All that chemically-intensive, factory-made fakeness applies to manufactured agave “nectar” just as much as HFCS. Using all sorts of toxic chemicals, caustic acids, and genetically-modified enzymes, they take the starch of the root bulb from the agave plant, and, just like with the starch from corn, put it through the processing ringer transforming it almost the exact same way into not much more than free synthetic fructose and a bunch of chemicals.
How do we enter the contests to win products ? Are they on your site here and I am just missing them?
Also, are the soaking times in Nourishing Traditions adequate for grains, legumes and rice? There is some discrepancy between this book and the How to CurelTooth Decay, I think.
Thank you
Marie
I soak my grains and legumes for 24 hours. I know that NT says overnight is sufficient but also suggests a 24 hours soak, so soak for the longer period of time and it does seem to improve digestibility.
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Wow, I never thought of this as a ‘recipe’ or anything Russian… this was what my father served me when I was sick, especially for a sore throat, when I was a child. It was my favourite treat! Perhaps he learned it from his Russian father or Polish mother. I’ll have to start making this for a treat more often.
Sounds delicious! You can also use part of a rinsed shell in your water kefir to add minerals.
There’s info in the new edition of Gut & Psychology Syndrome which I think may be different from the original one with regard to introducing dairy. I’m not sure how different it is — maybe somebody could confirm this. I know it talks about using homemade sour cream pretty early on in the process (just checked, First Stage of Intro, actually), as a high fat, as opposed to high protein, dairy food. On p. 148 she talks about introducing sour cream made with yoghurt culture first, and then sour cream made with kefir culture. This would be after using the overnight sensitivity test on the wrist to be sure it’s tolerated. In any case, maybe using homemade sour cream would be a fun variation to try for your recipe.
Excellent! For months my family has been enjoying the protein cookies linked in your post – which require 8 egg whites. But now I have 10 little containers of frozen yolks in my freezer (frozen in 3′s for making ice cream). From now on, I’ll just make Russian Custard and save the space in my freezer. Perfect!
Oh this is eggcellent!!! I’m always looking for new things to do with eggs since my chickens make more than I can eat. Plus I have to cut corners with my raw dairy budget and cream is wildly expensive. So I can use this for all those wonderful cream based recipes I keep getting through Real Food Media
Also, LOVE the bonus you gave use with some egg white ideas. I use/eat a lot of yolks but I hate wasting the whites. I’m going to make these protein cookies soon!!!
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My sister loves Russian custard! The only problem is she hates taking the time to whisk it with a fork.
In the picture you have it looks like you’re using a electric whisk…. Are you? And what brand is it? It would be so much easier to make the Russian custard if we didn’t have to stand there and beat our arms off!
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I was reading some of the comments, and noticed you mentioned date sugar. I don’t know much about date sugar except for the fact that it comes from dates. Wouldn’t it be considered “processed” ?? In other words, how do they get the sugar out of the dates?
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Russian custard is known as Zabaglione in Italy or Sabayon in France. Sugar is
traditionally used: 1 – 2 Tbsps as well as Marsala wine or Grand Marnier (personal
preference) I used to make this for my children when they were growing up in a
large copper bowl over hot water. Whipping the egg yolks creates the volume.
A sweetener is just that: to sweeten. It is delicious and healthy.
Bon appetito!
Thanks a lot for the link on how to use leftover eggwhites!!! It’s very helpfull. And tasty
I know that this is an older post, but had to reply as I only stumbled across it the other day and I have just tried it. I was out of cream to have on my baked apples (and can’t source any raw cream anyway, so always feel like pasteurised cream is such a huge compromise!) so I tried your Russian Custard and LOVED IT! Been eating WAP style for nearly a year now and your website has made it so easy! Thankyou so much!!
Hi Sarah! Thanks for this recipe. My family just enjoyed some tonight, and it is perfect for the GAPS diet. I was wondering, what did you do with all your egg whites while you were on the GAPS diet since the two recipes you mention call for ingredients not permitted on the GAPS diet? Thanks so much.
I Love how you summarized the soaking of nuts in 4 simple sentences. This is very much needed since I am overwhelmed sometimes with work and home and cannot bring myself to re-read nourishing traditions. Thanks for summing it up simply! I am going to try soaking nuts for the first time!
If you make a batch of this, how long can you store it in the fridge? Can you just re-whip it the next day to fluff it again?
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