Charles' Pot De Creme

While my latest obsessions have been of the savory variety, my son Charles has been hooked on custard.  He has had some painful mouth problems in his young life and soothing cold custard has been his favorite treat for as long as I can remember. It comforts like no other dessert and making it is a breeze. Now, that's not to say it didn't take a few batches before we got the formula quite right for the texture and flavor we wanted. Charles enjoys cooking projects and since he loves this dish so much, I decided it would be a great beginners recipe to write. I had him start with a basic flan custard, which was way too eggy for our tastes. With less egg it needed a little more fat. Swapping out some of the milk for heavy cream was just the ticket. It was a little sweet, so he reduced the sugar and also experimented with cook temps and times, finding low and slow is the way to go. One happy accident came from not having quite enough custard cups the first time he made it, so we rooted out a case of 1/2 pint wide mouth canning jars and used a couple those. The next day when Charles wanted to take one to school in his lunch, John just screwed on the cap (he is so smart!). Totally portable. He now makes the whole batch in those jars. For Charles this was a tasty and rewarding project, all in all he made this about 10 times to get it right, keeping good notes on the changes he made along the way and can now make the whole recipe without any help from me. It makes me happy because I know it is a gift that will keep on giving his whole life (won't his girlfriends be lucky).  

For the Custard:

In a blender pour 

1/12 cups heavy cream

2 cups whole milk

1/4 cup sugar

1  14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk

5 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla

Blend on medium speed until thoroughly mixed. Pour though a sieve into a large pitcher to strain. Then pour into 8 custard cups, or in our case wide mouth 1/2 pint canning jars. put jars into a 9 x 13 baking pan and fill the pan half up the side of the jars with warm water. Bake in a 300 degree oven for one hour and ten minutes. Ours get a little brown crust on top, which we like, but if you want them white on top, cover with foil while baking and reduce bake time by 10 minutes. They will still jiggle a tad but should not be liquidy in the center. Be careful pulling from oven. Set out to cool before removing them from the water. Once they are room temp refrigerate for four hours or so until completely chilled. Then all you need is a spoon...isn't that right, Chaz?