The best thing about this vegan custard recipe is that you can use it in many vegan desserts, such as our easy vanilla cake, tangy lemon tart, or a fresh and summery fruit tart. It can also be used as a pastry cream to fill doughnuts and croissants or baked to make custard pies.Finally, this basic vegan custard recipe can be easily tweaked and flavoured with several ingredients.In the variations section below we show you how to make coconut custard, lemon custard, chocolate custard, coffee custard, and even pistachio custard.
Ingredients & Substitutions
Plant milk: we use soy milk, almond milk, or oat milk to make a low-fat vegan custard. We use coconut milk to make a richer, full-fat one. Cornstarch: we use it as a thickening agent. We find this hard to replace. If you are allergic, then potato starch is a good replacement.Sugar: we use white sugar. Any sugar will work.Vanilla: this depends on your budget really. Most often we use vanilla extract, but if we feel like splurging, then we use the real seeds of a vanilla pod.Turmeric: this is optional, but we like to add a tiny pinch of turmeric when we want to give the pastry cream a yellow colour. Do not add too much or else your custard will turn to a fake yellow-greenish colour, and it will taste like turmeric. You can replace turmeric with saffron powder.Lemon: this is optional, but we like to add lemon peel to our basic vegan custard. We also make a mean vegan lemon custard, see variations chapter below for that one.
Tips and troubleshooting
Cooling down
If cooled down improperly, the vegan custard will dry up on the surface, and the dry parts will create lumps. To avoid that, keep stirring while the custard cools down. The fastest and easiest way to do that is to fill up your sink with cold water, then submerge 3/4 of the pot in the water and stir for 5 minutes, or until the custard is close to room temperature. Then on medium heat, stir continuously until the liquid thickens into a creamy custard. It can take between 2 to 5 minutes, depending on the quantities. When you have almost reached the consistency that you like, take off the heat and keep stirring for another minute. The custard will keep thickening while off the heat. TIP: to check if your custard is ready take a wooden or silicone spatula, dip it in the custard, then run a finger through it. If the spatula stays clean, the custard is ready.
Getting rid of lumps
If your custard makes lumps, do not worry. There are two ways to fix it: You can use these two tricks also if you reuse the custard after storing it away in the refrigerator. It will get more thick and gelatinous, so you’ll need to blend it or whisk it to make it creamy again.
Frequently asked questions
Coffee custard: add real espresso coffee or instant coffee to the plant milk, dissolve, add the other ingredients and proceed as for the classic custard. No lemon or turmeric in this one. Pistachio custard: roast pistachio nuts first, then blend them with the plant milk, till you have smooth pistachio milk. Now add sugar, cornstarch, pistachio milk, and vanilla to a pot, and proceed as for the classic custard.
Texture variations
Baked custard: to make a great vegan baked custard we recommend cooking the custard in a saucepan first for about 2 minutes, then using it to fill a pie shell, and then baking it in the oven for about 30 minutes. This is how we made our lemon tart, vegan fruit tart, or custard pie. Crème anglaise: also known as vanilla custard sauce, is a lightly thickened pouring custard flavoured with vanilla extract and no lemon flavour. Bring to a boil for a minute then while stirring continuously, keep stirring on low heat until lightly thickened. Cut the amount of cornstarch in our base recipe in half. Pastry cream: perfect to fill up doughnuts, croissants, custard rolls, or vanilla cakes. Classic pastry cream is generally flavoured with vanilla and no lemon. To make it just cook the custard for longer. Boil it for about 3 minutes while stirring, then take it on low heat and keep stirring until you reach your desired consistency.
Storage
You can store this vegan custard in the refrigerator for 2 to 3 days. Cooldown the custard while stirring before putting it in the refrigerator. You can reheat the custard on low heat by adding a dash of plant milk while stirring.It is possible that during the cooling process the custard will dry out on the surface and make a thin skin that will result in annoying lumps. If you are annoyed by the lumps then you can blend the custard with a hand blender. We tried and it works. We do not recommend freezing the custard unless you want to make ice cream out of it.
YouTube
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Buon appetito! Nico [adthrive-in-post-video-player video-id=”CcYuUnr4″ upload-date=”2021-06-17T00:00:00.000Z” name=”Vegan custard” description=”Our vegan custard recipe is a smooth, creamy and delicious recipe that you can make in 5 minutes with 5 simple ingredients. You can use this custard in tarts, cakes and desserts. You can also flavour it with vanilla, lemon, chocolate and much more. Here, we’ll show you how.” player-type=”default” override-embed=”default”]
