First Attempt at Custard...

So, I tried this week's recipe. It actually went fairly well...though my dear husband might need to get me a kitchen torch for our anniversary because the broiler didn't work as well as I wanted. But I am getting ahead of myself.

First off, I made my own pastry crust rather than buying it. I just made a basic crust using the Cuisinart recipe (butter, flour, salt, and ice water). And I didn't have a tart pan, so I made it in an aluminum cake pan. Here it is...

The pastry crust turned out well. Even though I used pie beads, the crust bubbled a little, but I just broke the bubble and once I added filling it didn't matter.

Then I moved on to the custard. I am not really a big custard fan, and so I had never made it before. My first attempt didn't thicken well enough--I think I added the milk too fast. So I poured that out and started again. This time I only added 1 3/4 cups of milk and at a much slower rate. It thickened up quite nicely and cooled perfectly. While it was cooling, I cut up the peaches and washed a few blueberries that I wanted to add as well. Here it is before I added the sugar and browned the top:

This is where it got a little tricky. I poured the sugar over the top (I only used about 1/4 cup rather than the 1/3 of the cup called for in the recipe) and covered the edges of the crust with aluminum foil and put it under the broiler...and watched it like a hawk (I have burned one too many things under the broiler...). The middle caramelized fairly well, but the edges never got quite crusty.

Here is the finished product:

I served it for dessert tonight when we had friends over. Everyone really enjoyed it, and while I am not normally a custard fan, I thought it was quite tasty and nice and light...perfect for a post-BBQ dessert! Next time I think I would like to add some orange zest to the custard...and of course, add a kitchen torch to my gadget drawer!