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Delicious, nourishing egg custard made the traditional way, loaded with healthy fats for your creamy enjoyment as the ultimate comfort food.
Egg custard pudding was my favorite treat growing up.
I usually made a couple of bowls a week at my Grandparents’ house, who lived not far down the road.
My Grandfather, also a huge egg custard fan, and I would happily enjoy a bowl while sitting in his favorite chair, watching baseball on the rabbit-eared black and white TV in the living room.
Egg custard was basically the only thing I could cook in my middle school years, and it didn’t really get much better until I had kids!
The reason I learned how to make this one dish at my Grandparents’ house at such an early age was my nearly constant craving for eggs, which were rarely served in my own home.
I have no idea why I craved eggs so much – I don’t crave them at all anymore probably because I get so many good fats elsewhere in my diet and eggs are often on the menu.
I think these tween cravings were likely because the wholesome fats in the yolk provided such excellent nourishment at such a fast-growing and hormonally charged time of life.
In my opinion, egg custard is a great first dish to teach your children (along with scrambled eggs). When you skip the white sugar in most versions and substitute unprocessed, whole cane sugar or dark maple syrup instead, the flavor even resembles flan!
If your children are tweens or teens and still haven’t shown much interest in cooking (this is an important life skill to teach!), haul them into the kitchen and show them how to whip up a bowl of egg custard or another healthy dessert recipe that might interest them.
Be sure to serve each bowl with a spoonful of homemade whipped cream on top.
More Homestyle Puddings to Enjoy!
While this egg custard recipe uses dairy milk, there are many ways to make nondairy pudding if you prefer. Here are some alternative recipes to consider.
Classic Egg Custard Recipe
An easy, traditional recipe for egg custard pudding that will delight both young and old with its rich flavor and easy digestibility.
Ingredients
- 6 eggs preferably pastured or free range
- 3 cups whole milk preferably grassfed
- 1/2 cup maple syrup preferably dark or Grade B
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp sea salt
- ground nutmeg optional
Instructions
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Crack eggs into a medium-sized, oven safe glass bowl (I use this one) and whip until just blended.
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Add sea salt and vanilla and mix well. Blend in maple syrup and whole milk with a whisk.
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Bake egg custard in the same mixing bowl at 400 °F/204 °C for 45-50 minutes or until bubbly and lightly browned on top, and a knife inserted in the center of the bowl comes out clean.
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Remove from the oven and sprinkle the optional nutmeg on top.
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Egg custard is delicious served warm! After the bowl is cooled, refrigerate leftovers for up to 4-5 days.
Recipe Notes
Goat or cow milk both work well in this recipe.
If you wish to use duck eggs instead of chicken eggs, use 4 instead of 6 eggs. Duck eggs are quite a bit larger than chicken eggs.
For anyone dealing with curdled custard, the main flaw with this recipe is that it’s baked way too hot and not with a water bath. I gave the recipe the benefit of the doubt, followed it exactly, using duck eggs, for the shortest listed bake time, yes with an oven thermometer. Curdle city. I’ll return to the tried-and-true method of pastry chefs that goes back centuries using water bath, lower temp of 300, for longer bake time- about an hour, starting checking at 45 min., remove while center still jiggles. Duck eggs are known to have strong chalaza, so pouring through a fine mesh strainer is important too, really for even chicken eggs. Flavor was nice so I only removed one star for the baking method flaw.
That’s odd. I’ve never had this recipe curdle in 50 years I’ve been making it this way!
No worries, just helping those who asked for it. Also, I successfully made this using the ingredient list but baking for 35-40 min @ 325 using water bath method. I stirred it in my blendtec, poured into 2 quart oblong glass baking dish set diagonally in a 9×13, carefully pouring boiling water into the 9×13. Didn’t curdle, didn’t break. There’s a reason the French do it this way!
I have 1.5 and 2.5 qt dishes. Does this recipe fill your 2qt bowl, or will I be safe in the 1.5 qt dish?
I would use the bigger bowl. It would likely too easily spill in the smaller bowl.
The link with the bowl shows a lid. Do you put the lid on in the oven? I suspect not since you didn’t mention it. Just wanted to clarify. Thanks!
No lid in the oven 🙂
Hi Sarah:)
we have goats and currently we are swimming in raw goatsmilk haha! I’m trying to find ways to use it besides the ferments we do. I tried this recipe and it is so good and so easy! Making it again today and preparing a berry sauce to put in the fridge to drizzle over it for dessert later. Thank you!:)
Mine separated into the egg and liquid as well. Not sure what I did wrong, maybe overcooked? But I stuck my immersion blender in there and it turned into a wonderful pudding consistency, and didn’t separate again after being in the fridge for a couple days. So delicious, with the flavour of the caramelized maple syrup from the top of the custard.
It is normal for the liquid to form at the bottom.
Thank you for your recipe. I had been wanting to make egg custard for some time and read a couple of dozen recipes. I really did not have the energy to scald the milk, temper the eggs, prepare a hot water bath etc. I took all of your ingredients and threw them into a blender and then into a baking dish. Put it into a 400 degree oven and set the timer for 45 minutes. At 45 minutes a knife came out clean from the center and it looked lovely with a light brown crust and was bubbly around the edge. I did not run into any of the pitfalls mentioned in some other reviews and would be proud to serve this anywhere. Took a picture of it but there does not appear to be a way to post pics here. Thank you very much!!
I can’t figure out what I did wrong. My pudding came out very curdled. I’ll still eat it but bummed at how much separation there was. Any ideas?
No idea what you might have done wrong. It turns out perfectly every time and I’ve been making this recipe or 40 years.
Mine also curdled badly and the only thing I did off-recipe was I used my immersion blender instead of a whisk.
Do not use an immersion blender. You definitely can overbeat the eggs!
Am I just not reading carefully? I see nutmeg listed in the ingredients, but not in the recipe.
The nutmeg is just sprinkled on at the end and is optional. Thanks for letting me know about that 🙂
Sarah, I hadn’t made egg custard in years and was having a craving. 🙂 I used to make it for my children when they were young. I use raw milk and pastured eggs and sweeten with honey. I had read your article on how healthy and nutritious it is for us. As delicious as egg custard is, how can there be any nutritional benefit left in it when the milk is heated and then baked in an oven? Would you please comment on this.
Raw milk that is baked is not damaged as much as pasteurization which heats the milk up so fast that it denatures the milk proteins. That said, there are certainly no enzymes or probiotics left in the custard after baking. Using quality grassfed milk, though, there is certainly lots of nutrition as the fat soluble vitamins are not harmed by heating. Nor are the healthy fats in the cream damaged. Lately, I’ve been making this dish using date syrup instead of sugar which makes it even healthier as it is fruit sweetened! Hope that helps.