Vanilla Custard Sauce (Creme Anglaise)

 Vanilla Custard Sauce (Creme Anglaise)

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This was from McCall's magazine June 1994 edition.  The dark gray spot in the lower middle column is a water spot that happened just before I took the picture.  It dried.  But there are several other stains around the page as if this was a well-loved recipe although I don't ever remember having it.  I made this to go with the Danish Puff.  I was hoping it would be thick, like Bavarian creme filling in donuts - but it stayed very thin and runny.  What was left over from the Danish Puff I just wound up putting in my coffee.

I priced vanilla beans but they were over $10 for one bean so I went with an internet-recommended substitute of 1 tsp high-quality pure vanilla extract.  It seemed a good substitute, I could smell and taste the vanilla throughout the sauce.

So I heated the vanilla-tinted milk until it just started to bubble and covered with a tight fitting lid; setting the timer for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile I measured the 3 TBSP sugar and 1/2 tsp cornstarch into a bowl and mixed it up.

A while ago I made a bunch of cupcakes that only needed egg whites so I took the advice of internet cooks and froze all the egg yolks in ice cube trays.  So I took out 3 cubes to stand for the egg yolks.  They don't really thaw out back to their rounded shape though.  I've tried, at other times, heating them to thaw but that just winds up cooking them.  Today I set the bowl on a warm burner that had been used and turned off.  They got rather soft.

So I was able to mush them easily with my mini wire whisk that I "inherited" from my mother-in-law when we cleaned out her kitchen.  I love that mini-whisk; it comes in super handy.

I gambled with adding two bits of water to make it a bit more of an egg-yolk consistency.

I decided it would be easier to to add the sugar to the egg bowl instead of scraping out all the egg.

Then I realized my original bowl would've been bigger to hold all the milk mixture - but proceeded with the small bowl anyway, determined to put as much milk into it as I could before putting it all back in the saucepan.  

I actually got all the milk to fit in the egg bowl!

I made sure to use a wooden spoon and stirred for 8 minutes.  While stirring I read a book - 8 minutes is a long time to just stand and stir.

I didn't think the sauce was much thicker but after 8 minutes I guess the line stayed on the back of the spoon.  I'd never heard of that doneness test before so I wasn't really sure what I was looking for.

When I strained it a lot of egg yolk bits got caught in the strainer.  I think it was mostly due to the frozen egg yolks but might've been partly due to the egg yolks cooking a bit during the heating process.

I hoped cooling would make the sauce thicken but it did not, in spite of stirring about three times during the cooling process.  I stored it overnight in a plastic container with tight fitting lid in the refrigerator but that did not thicken it either.  My cornstarch is well within the "best by" date so I don't know if my expectations were just not in line with the outcome or if using fresh egg yolks would make a difference.

I don't really know what to do with this sauce.  The serving size (10 servings - 1 cup) perplex me a bit.  Obviously there are not 10 cups here.  So I guess a serving is just between 1 and 2 TBSP.  No recommendations are included for how to serve.  I think it would be nice over fresh fruit like strawberries or banana or peaches.