Dairy-free custard

Let's find out how to prepare the water-based custard, without milk and perfect for those intolerant to lactose.

You may be wondering why you should prepare custard without milk. This pride of the pastry shop with more than 300 years of history has always been prepared with the usual four ingredients. Well times have changed and more and more people suffer from lactose intolerance . Preparing this classic cream without milk using water instead is undoubtedly the simplest choice.

Clearly, as an alternative, you can use vegetable or lactose-free drinks but it goes without saying that the practicality of our milk-free custard recipe lies precisely in the use of water: you can't say you don't have any!

How to prepare the dairy-free custard recipe

1. First, remove the lemon zest with a potato peeler. Make sure that the lemon is organic and has untreated peel and be careful not to detach the white part with a bitter taste. If you prefer vanilla cream, use a berry, cut lengthwise.
2. Pour the water into a saucepan, add the chosen aroma and heat until almost boiling.
3. In the meantime, in another saucepan, beat the egg yolks with the sugar and flour (or corn starch for a gluten free version) until you obtain a cream.
4. Pour in the hot water, filtering it through a fine mesh strainer and stirring constantly with a whisk , then putting everything back on the heat to thicken . On medium-low heat it will take about ten minutes.
5. Transfer the water custard into a bowl, cover with cling film and let cool completely before using.

Excellent for filling tarts or to be enjoyed as a dessert, the water custard has nothing to envy of the original and you can also use it to fill cream puffs .

Dairy-free custard: variations

As mentioned, dairy-free cream can also be made with vegetable drinks , preferably unsweetened. In this case the procedure is identical to that of the custard. For a gluten-free version , replace the flour with corn starch or rice starch in equal quantities.

We wanted to experiment by also making the chocolate variant and we were enthusiastic about it. It was sufficient to add 100 g of chopped dark chocolate to the still hot cream and mix until it melted.

Last tip: if you want to flavor it with lemon you can replace 100 g of water with the same weight of filtered citrus juice as seen in this video .

Conservation

The dairy-free custard will keep in the refrigerator, covered in cling film, for 3-4 days.

Read also

Vegan custard, the recipe with soy milk