17.05.12

Preheat your oven to 300ºF.

Using a paring knife, split the vanilla beans in half lengthwise and scrape the pulp. Combine the vanilla beans and pulp with the milk and cream in a 3-quart sauce pot over medium heat, letting it slowly come to a simmer.

Combine the egg yolks and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Whisk until the sugar is completely incorporated. Once the cream/milk/vanilla concoction comes to a steady simmer, take it off the heat. With a whisk in one hand, ladle the hot dairy into the eggs in small batches, whisking to prevent the eggs from scrambling. Once you've fully combined the two elements and it's looking good, return this to the stove in the three-quart sauce pot over medium heat.

As an additional measure to safeguard against having it curdle in the oven, cook the custard on the stove, stirring gently, until it registers 85ºC on a thermometer, or until the liquid is nappé (a French term regarding the viscosity as "coating the back of a spoon"). Once it's reached the right temperature/consistency, remove the whole vanilla beans and divide the custard base evenly into ramekins, cups, mason jars, or otherwise appropriate vessels.

Source: KCET (blog)