When you need comfort and you’ve got some extra eggs, here are two recipes that will lift your spirits: a pan-sized puffed pancake known as a “Dutch baby” and baked custard, which my grandmother often made for me if I was feeling a little down or a tad under the weather. This week, because my spirits needed extra lifting, I decided to make both. One recipe turned out great and the other turned out not necessarily as planned but still scrumptious enough for seconds.
The important thing is, I used up a half-dozen of the eggs that had been in my fridge for a few weeks, slowly easing past their viability as comestibles. It actually takes an egg a long time to go bad. The U.S. Department of Agriculture considers eggs safe to eat for 45 days after processing — that is, approximately five weeks after the pack date, assuming they’ve been refrigerated the whole time. The pack date is on the right side of the carton, next to the “sell by” date. (It might look like a serial number, but it’s actually something called a Julian date, which marks the days of the year from 001 to 365.) If you think your eggs might be too old to eat, it’s far better to be safe than to become unwittingly familiar with salmonella.
Now that we’ve gotten food poisoning out of the way, we can move on to the yummy stuff. I used to make baked custard a lot when my daughter was younger, because she wasn’t (and still isn’t) much of a meat eater and I was always looking for ways to feed her extra protein. I like this recipe because it uses honey in place of sugar and isn’t too sweet, so I suppose it’s relatively healthy. I mean, it’s not a pile of broccoli, but it’s not a deep-fried Snickers bar, either. It does, however, have a luscious, velvety texture that makes me think of crème brulee or flan.
Heat 2 cups of milk on the stovetop until scalded but not boiling. (I scalded mine a bit too much because the bottom of the pan was blackened, but it didn’t affect the flavor, so I guess I beat the Law of Kitchen Mishaps at least in this small regard.) Mix ¼ cup honey to the hot milk. For a sweeter custard, add 1/3 cup honey. Beat 3 eggs with ¼ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon nutmeg. Slowly add the hot milk to the beaten eggs. Pour the mixture into six ramekins or small cups and arrange them in a pan containing about half an inch of hot water. (This is called a bain-marie, a French term that I imagine means “Mary’s bathwater.”) Sprinkle more nutmeg onto each ramekin and top with a tiny pat of butter. Bake at 325 degrees for 40 minutes. The custard can be enjoyed warm or chilled.
