what went wrong???

[MyJourney]

I make this custard all the time and it comes out great. I made the same thing on saturday afternoon and I went to have some today and there was a hard layer of fat that I guess floated to the top and hardened there.

The recipe is mix 8 egg yolks with 1/3c sweetener, add 2c cream and 1tsp vanilla, strain and pour into ramekins, put ramekins in a water bath and bake at 300 for 40-50 min.

did I not mix it enough? I have no idea why this happened! :-( It always comes out perfect.

[Nancy LC]

I am remembering from Alton Brown episode, when you cook egg the more you cook it the tighter the proteins bond, that squeezes out whatever the egg is supposed to be bound with, like water or probably milk fat. He demonstrated by putting a sponge in a net and twisting the net tighter and tighter, of course all the water comes out of the sponge.

Do the eggs look kind of curdled?

Could your oven be getting wonky?

Oh, you might want to read this: http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1715,150160-245195,00.html

This might help too: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=6&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.baking911.com%2Fcustard%2F101_intro.htm&ei=YJCSRuPgL5X-gwOW9ZinDQ&usg=AFQjCNGm7gfmsz7T6-4dbfYXLv4RUKaXVQ&sig2=XyJrZJXirA-2l3nBeu9Oiw

[MyJourney]

The eggs werent curdled at all. What happened is that when I took it out of the water bath it was as though the fat seperated and floated to the top. There was a thick layer of fat that solidified. It had the texture of coconut oil and no flavor. I could easily peel it off. Beneath that the custard was rich, thick and creamy. Nothing curdled or anything else.

I used room temperature egg yolks and room temperature cream. Is it possible that my water for the water bath wasnt hot enough? Usually I boil the water but this time I just used room temperature water.

[Nancy LC]

Ah... yes, I bet that was it. The recipe I saw says use boiling water in the water bath.

[IslandGirl]

I've never heard of that happening, nor have I ever seen separated butterfat (from cream, it's still butterfat) that was neutral...very weird.

One thing I will mention, after reading your description of events, is that when I cook a custard, whether I use warm or hot water (and I usually use hot), I bake them until there's only a little jiggle left in the middle. If you use the timing method, then the lower temperature water will cause you problems as it will take time to come up to heat as it surrounds the ramekin. So your timing will be off. Since people's ovens vary, too, it's really best to use the boiling water (for sure) AND to check them at 30 minutes and up, looking for that solidity with only a bit of jiggle in the middle...

Strange days...

:wave:

[MyJourney]

They were actually a little more jiggly than usual. I cooked them for an extra 10 minutes and they got a little better. I suspect it was the water temp.

They were totally weird results! I wish I would have taken a picture.