Vegan Custard Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Which plant milk is best for custard? ›

Plant Milk - Soy milk works best for this recipe, but feel free to sub this for any plant milk. Your vegan custard will taste like almonds if you use almond milk, so avoid this one. Cornstarch - The cornstarch in this recipe makes the custard thicken.

But it really shines as an egg replacer in creamy and custardy baked goods like puddings and pies! Cornstarch, being a thickener, yields a viscous, eggy substance when mixed with water in the right proportion. Use 2 tablespoons of cornstarch plus 3 tablespoons of liquid for every egg you need to replace.

What is vegan custard? Custard is usually thickened by the coagulation of egg protein, generally made by combining the egg yolks with milk and sugar. Our vegan version uses cornstarch as a thickening agent, a tiny bit of turmeric for colour, and plant milk – such as soy, almond or coconut – to replace dairy milk.

Oat milk is perhaps the creamiest of all the plant milks. Its thick creamy texture means it's one of the closest plant-based milks to resemble dairy milk.

Use flour for a velvety texture, or cornflour for a custard more like one made with custard powder. Lovely with crumbles and steamed puddings! Heat the milk to scalding point. Put the egg yolks and sugar into a bowl and whisk together well.

Custard is a decadent dessert made with eggs, milk, and sugar. Eggs are responsible for custard's thick and velvety texture, but some recipes (such as this one) call for thickeners such as cornstarch or arrowroot for extra richess.

While most custard and pudding recipes both typically call for eggs, the main difference is that pudding uses a starch for thickening, whereas custard's thickening agent is the egg itself (or egg yolk, in most instances). Custard's texture also tends to be firmer than pudding.

As almond milk is made from seeds (yep, technically they are seeds, not nuts), they are in theory completely vegan, and as they are not generally not sweetened or altered with animal byproducts like honey, it is understood as vegan.

Custard tends to scramble once the heat gets involved and can therefore prove tricky to master. You'll know your custard has scrambled once the mixture turns lumpy. This often happens as a result of overheating your liquid.

How to avoid scrambling eggs in custard? ›

Add the milk in 1/2-cup increments to bring the temperature of the eggs up gradually while whisking. Tip: Whisking the eggs with sugar helps, too. Now you can add the tempered eggs to the hot milk without worrying that the eggs will curdle or scramble. Keep stirring over medium heat as the custard thickens.

Why does my egg custard pie taste like scrambled eggs? Overbaked custard can lead to an eggy flavor and rubbery consistency. Make sure to bake the custard pie until slightly jiggly in the center. It will continue to set as it cools.

I prefer a two-ingredient soymilk (soy and water) with no added thickeners or other ingredients (like WestSoy or Trader Joe's) or a simple lite canned coconut milk. Starch Options: Cornstarch is ideal for dairy-free custard. But if you need corn-free, you can substitute arrowroot starch.

By using a non-dairy milk such as coconut, almond, or oat milk you keep this simple instant pudding dairy-free/ vegan. After looking through some of the most common flavors I have yet to find one containing milk or gelatin (two animal byproducts often associated with Jell-O brand pudding).

Among other milk alternatives like almond milk, soy milk and oat milk, soy milk is by far the best for baking. I learned this over the course of several years and many cookies, cakes, muffins and pies. Moreover, some people will tell you that you must swap full-fat coconut milk in for heavy cream or half-and-half.

The test made a few things clear: soy milk, at its best, tastes closest to cow's milk. Oat tastes like a sweetly nutty cereal milk while almond tastes like the water left in your sink after washing the breakfast dishes.