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By: Ikedi Ani-okoye

Custard introduction

Custard is a range of preparations based on milk and eggs, thickened with heat. Most commonly, it refers to a dessert or dessert sauce, but custard bases are also used for quiches and other savoury foods. As a dessert, it is made from a combination of milk or cream, egg yokes, sugar, and vanilla.

Sometimes flour, corn starch, or gelatin are also added. In French cookery, custard—called simply "crème" or more precisely "crème moulée"—is never thickened in this way: when starch is added, it is pastry cream crème pâtissière; when gelatin is added, it is crème anglaise collée.

Frozen Custard

Frozen Custard is made fresh, every 2-4 hours and must have a minimum requirement of 10 percent butterfat and 1.4 percent egg yolk. Generally frozen custard is produced with a low overrun percentage of around 20 percent. Traditional frozen custard stores will only serve 1-3 flavors each day - vanilla, chocolate and a rotating flavor of the day. Usually frozen custard is served slightly warming than hard scoop ice cream, around 18 degrees Fahrenheit.

Christmas custard

My involvement with food began at an early age. Eating to survive was a given, but my mother gave new meaning to the word "delicious" during the holiday season. This is when she would cook cookies, cakes and pies for Christmas celebrations. My favorite though was her boiled custard and red velvet cake! There was a silent contest each year between my mother and my Aunt Helen as to who had the best tasting boiled custard. None of us would declare a winner for fear the loser wouldn't make the dessert next year. The contest was always a draw.

CONCLUSION

Traditionally, stores serve three flavors of frozen custard : Vanilla, Chocolate and a rotating flavor of the day. The ideal frozen custard machine size and number of barrels will depend on the menu, volume of traffic, and of course budget.

Manufacturers such as Stoelting have a variety of machines available in a variety of sizes ranging from single-barrel continuous flow freezers to triple barrel freezers such as the CC-303 that is perfect for a large store that needs to produce the maximum amount of frozen custard possible.