Rich Custard (Page 720)

• Date: Friday, April 21, 2006 - 10pm
• Location: Somerville, MA
• Kitchen: My Apartment
• Dining Companions: Paul, Alex, Marco, Mike, John, Sophie, Vigleik, Shihchi, Vero, Cotton, Jessie
• Recipe Rating: A-

This was yet another component of the trifle I made for my birthday party. When I first read the recipe I was quite confused: it's not quite creme anglaise since it has cornstarch in it, but it's also not pastry cream since it's not boiled. I guess "rich custard" is the appropriate name for this in-between sauce/filling type thing. It was so good though! Mmmmm.... Making custardy sauces never ceases to seem like a miracle to me: you just take such simple things: eggs, milk, sugar, vanilla, and turn them in to something so incredibly good. My only complaint: it was a little thin for the trifle. If you look carefully at the picture of the trifle itself you can see that there is a tiny bit of seepage where the custard came through the cake. Now this is probably partly my fault on 2 counts: one, I could have packed my exterior cake strips more tightly, and two, I think I didn't let the custard get cool enough before assembling my trifle. That said, I think it still could have been a tad thicker. It tasted amazing though!

I have been trying in the last few days to make a plan for the summer. I want to be here for commencement of course, to celebrate Mike and Vigleik and Bridget finishing. I also want to spend some time in California - I am going to go on vacation with Emilee and Brian towards the end of June. Plus I will spend some time in Germany in July for a conference. It's not so much traveling really, but I would still like to have a plan. That's one of my goals for the week.

My differential equations students have an exam today, which means that my plan for tonight includes sitting at 1369 with a big glass of hot apple cider, grading exams! Everyone agrees that grading is prety miserable, but I don't mind it too much in small doses. Since I have a grader for the homework, the only grading I do is for exams. They are infrequent enough that I don't mind!