“Where did THESE come from?”
That was my first thought when the Prairie Kids brought in some abnormally large, blueish eggs a month or two ago. We’ve only had brown eggs since the raccoons got our Amerucana hens last year, and I couldn’t fathom why on earth our Plymouth Rocks and Red Sex Links suddenly started laying giant blue eggs.
Until I remembered we have ducks.
Duh, Jill. Duh.
Ever since, I’ve been on a mission to figure out the best ways to utilize these lovely duck eggs. Not only are duck eggs larger and richer than chicken eggs, but they also are reported to contain higher amounts of Omega-3s and protein. They have a bit more of an “intense” flavor, so most people prefer to add them to recipes, versus eating them plain. I’ve been experimenting with our duck eggs in all sorts of recipes lately, and have been nothing but impressed.
Most recently, I’ve been making duck egg custard, which makes me feel all sorts of fancy when I serve it in little custard cups after supper. But truthfully, homemade custard is incredibly simple to make, and uses milk and eggs, which are usually plentiful on a homestead.
Homemade Maple Custard Recipe
Makes 5-6 servings
- 3 whole duck eggs or 4 whole chicken eggs
- 1/3 cup* real maple syrup (like this)
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt (I use this one)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (how to make vanilla extract)
- 2 cups whole milk
- Ground nutmeg
- Hot water
*As written, these custards are delicately sweet. If you prefer a sweeter dessert, add 2-3 tablespoons of additional maple syrup.
Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.
Fill a teapot with water, and heat it just to boiling. Set aside.
Add the milk to a small saucepan, and scald it (heat it until it’s just about ready to boil, but don’t let it boil all the way).
In a separate bowl, beat together the eggs, maple syrup, salt, and vanilla.
By the way, I always use the real McCoy for syrup. Genuine, all-natural maple syrup trumps the store-bought pretend stuff every time. I highly recommend this wood-fired, all-natural maple syrup, made the old-fashioned way by the Plante family, in New England.
Slowly whisk the egg mixture into the scalded milk. Strain the custard through a fine mesh strainer (to remove lumps), then pour custard cups or oven-safe ramekins half-full with the mixture. Sprinkle ground nutmeg on the top of each cup.
Place the ramekins in a oven safe pan (like a large baking dish), and fill the pan with the hot water to create a water bath for your custard cups. The water should come halfway up the sides of the cups. (This ensures they cook gently and evenly).
Bake for 35-55 minutes, or until the custards are set but still “loose”. (I check by touching the top lightly with my finger, if it is still liquid, keep cooking. A little jiggle is OK, though.)
Remove from the oven and serve immediately if you like warm custard (I don’t). Otherwise, refrigerate for up to 24 hours before serving for a silky smooth, chilled custard.
Homemade Custard Notes
- My Pyrex ramekins are slightly larger, so this recipe makes enough to fill 5 of them. If you are using smaller cups, you can easily get six servings from this recipe.
- If you’d rather use granulated sugar in this recipe, you can. Simple omit the syrup and add 1/3 cup of sugar instead.
- Although I haven’t tried it yet, honey would be awesome in this recipe too.
- If it’s berry season, a handful of fresh berries would be heavenly on top of these maple custard cups.
Maple Custard Recipe
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 45 mins
- Total Time: 55 mins
- Yield: 5 servings 1x
- Category: Dessert
Ingredients
- 3 whole duck eggs or 4 whole chicken eggs
- 1/3 cup* real maple syrup
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt (I use this one)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups whole milk
- Ground nutmeg
- Hot water
Instructions
- *As written, these custards are delicately sweet. If you prefer a sweeter dessert, add 2-3 tablespoons of additional maple syrup.
- Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.
- Fill a teapot with water, and heat it just to boiling. Set aside.
- Add the milk to a small saucepan, and scald it (heat it until it’s just about ready to boil, but don’t let it boil all the way).
- In a separate bowl, beat together the eggs, maple syrup, salt, and vanilla.
- Slowly whisk the egg mixture into the scalded milk. Strain the custard through a fine mesh strainer (to remove lumps), then pour custard cups or oven-safe ramekins half-full with the mixture. Sprinkle ground nutmeg on the top of each cup.
- Place the ramekins in a oven safe pan (like a large baking dish), and fill the dish with the hot water to create a water bath for your custard cups. The water should go halfway up the sides of the cups. (This ensures they cook gently and evenly).
- Bake for 35-55 minutes, or until the custards are set but still “loose”. (I check by touching the top lightly with my finger, if it is still liquid, keep cooking until they are set. A little jiggle is OK, though.)
- Remove from the oven and serve immediately if you like warm custard (I don’t). Otherwise, refrigerate for up to 24 hours before serving for a silky smooth, chilled treat.
Sounds great and I will make it today! But if you don’t want to heat up your kitchen, use your Nesco and just fill the inner pan with the heated water, set the ramekins in there (filling the inner pan to only 1/2 the ramekin height). Very little added heat to the house.
Jill thanks for all your recipes. I use them constantly.
Mmmmm. I’ve made a few custards but none with our duck eggs yet. The pigs are constantly beating us to them. I suppose that is the downside of having a communal barn. The upside being that the pigs dig up enough food for everyone. Anyway, I’ll be sure to try this when the pigs go to freezer camp! Our eggs are white though. I’ve had several duck breeds but never any blue eggs. What breed do you have?
I think they are just mallards. Our first time owning ducks, so I’m not very good with breeds, ha! And yes, our pigs love eggs too!
Rouen ducks look like Mallards but are much heavier. Mallards generally fly away because they are good at flying. Maybe that will help you to figure out what breed you have. BTW, maple syrup has the same effect on my blood sugar as regular granulated sugar. But the fat in whole milk really does slow down the absorption of any sugar. Thanks for the lovely recipe!
Hello from England. We have 2 ducks- a white Campbell (there are khaki Campbells too) and an Indian Runner. They are the best egg layers of all the breeds ( around 300 a year) the runner lays blue eggs and the Campbell bright white.
I don’t have ducks, but I do have some chickens…so lots of eggs in the fridge. This looks yummy! Definitely trying it!
Enjoy Debra!
Last spring my sister went with me to the feed store and found the baby ducks. She looks at my mother (mind you this girl is 19-years old) and BEGS my mother to let her get some. Mom said “No, Heidi (me) has enough birds we don’t need more”… she eventually relented after my brother brought her some peking duck eggs from the duck farm his wife’s uncle owned. Realized duck eggs are fabulous to cook with and we’ve had ducks ever since.
Meg’s first ducks were 4 khaki brown’s, now we have 1 khaki left and have 5 peking chicks… and I am most definitely enjoying the ducks more than the chickens right now. Not enjoying the giant poop piles from the pekings though, so I think we might get a different breed… but the feed to egg ratio is better, the mess from scratching is better… and they’re cute to look at! 😀
They are pretty cute, huh? I’ve really enjoyed our ducks, even though they make a huge mess by the waterer!
Would you be able to substitute the maple syrup with honey? Pure maple is expensive here, but I have honey in abundance thanks to my bees! I love a good custard, and can’t wait to try this one!
Yep! honey should work just fine.
My mom used to make this custard and pour it over day-old bread that she had cubed. She would then bake it in the oven, like your recipe (hot water bath), in a pyrex casserole dish. It was theeee most awesome bread pudding! I liked it better cold, also. Sometimes she’d whip up some heavy cream and plop it on top. yumm!
This sounds delicious, Tawna!!! 🙂
oh yuuuum.
I have ducks, too. I think they’re really entertaining and the eggs are delicious! Thank you for posting this recipe. 🙂
Our Blue Swedes are great layers, so we always have lots to cook with. I made your recipe today, but since maple syrup is so expensive, I used an equal amount of agave syrup with about 1/2 tsp. maple extract. All who ate it said it was wonderful. Thanks for the lovely recipe!
Great substitute! Glad you enjoyed it!
This is such an easy and delicious recipe! I used chicken eggs and fresh off the farm milk. The taste and texture are fantastic! It’s creamy but light with just the right amount of sweetness as written. I made it in half pint canning jars which made it simple to cover when they went into the fridge. My husband kept saying “yum” while he ate it! Thanks for a keeper recipe!
Yay! I’m glad you and your husband enjoyed it! I bet it was cute in the half pint jars, too. 😉
Could I substitute the whole milk for goats milk Jill? I have a surplus of goats milk and always looking for new recipes. Thanks so much.
You bet! 🙂
Dear Jill, I wanted you to know that since I have been on fb(7 years) you were the first homesteading friend I had. Since that time I have always enjoyed your posts, especially the birth and journey with your children(I am a grandmother of five). We have a mini homestead and enjoy our retirement very much. Any time I have questions you have always been my first source to research . Thank you for taking the time in your busy life to keep us informed. Happy homesteading. June Carlisle
Needed some comfort food tonight. Boy, this really hit the spot. We have Muscovies so that’s what we used. Thanks for a great recipe. FYI, I made it in a 9×9″ pan rather than ramekins and it was done in 40 minutes.
I really enjoyed this recipe. I’ve made hot water custards only once before and could never tell if they were done or not.
This time i did your recipe in my Instant pot. Zero (yes, for real!) minutes at low pressure and ten minutes natural pressure release. Creamy and silky, but I think I could have taken them out a couple of minutes sooner.
Thanks for all your great recipes and photos!!
Hello,
I want to use this custard as a tart filling. Would it work? Do I need to bake the custard before putting it in the tart?
I am wondering if friend apples could be added to the custard and baked in a single crust pie?
I love custard like this and for my Pa I used to make caramel custard which he loved – just heat plain granulated sugar up in a saucepan until it is pale brown** and pour a bit in the bottom of each dish – then pour the custard on top and cook. Then you turn each one out, or you can do it all in a single dish. **You think you’ll never get the sugar off the pan but just soak for a while in water and it dissolves. NOTE: do not add butter or anything else to the caramel.
I was gifted some duck eggs today and upon searching for recipes I stumbled across this one. The only change I made was halving the sugar and substituted for coconut sugar. It was seriously delicious. I turned around and made a second one! Great work thank you 🙂
I can’t wait to try this tonight with the family. I have an abundance of duck eggs. We also have been getting goose eggs from Centuria our Roman Tuft guard goose. She gives us about 15 eggs in the spring. I am going to make a batch with goose egg too. Let you know how it turns out. 🙂
Could I make this custard with Coconut or Almond milk or combo of them? It sounds delicious
I have made this recipe several times with duck eggs and it has never failed me. So delicious!! I have also served to guests many times.
My daughter raises the ducks and always has extras.
How could I create an egg custard pie sourcing your recipe? I love the maple syrup (may use agave or honey as mine is very dark) and can’t do refined sugar or dairy at all sadly.
You might find a few custard pie recipes via an internet search. Then, simply exchange Jill’s custard with the custard recipe for that pie and see if it works out. You might have to play around with ratios and such, but it can be such a joy to experiment in the kitchen and come up with your own variations on recipes. Give it a try and let us know how it goes! We wish you the BEST in your cooking adventures!