New Mexico · Dessert
New Mexico Natillas
- Intermediate
- 60 min
- roughly 1 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with a silken, spoon-slow texture, warm spice humming through the middle, on a rich, rounded finish.
Ingredients
- 750ml milk
- 5 egg yolks
- 150g sugar
- 3 tbsp cornstarch
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 2 egg whites
- Cinnamon to dust
The skills inside
Whipping a meringueTempering a custard
Allergen screen
Found: dairy · egg
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Whisk a little of the milk with the yolks, sugar, cornstarch, and salt into a smooth slurry.
- Heat the rest of the milk, then temper in the slurry and cook, stirring, until thickened.
- Off the heat add the vanilla.
- Whip the egg whites to soft peaks and fold them through the warm custard for lightness.
- Chill and serve dusted with cinnamon.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Whipping a meringue 40 recipes
- Bowl and whisk are clean and dry with no trace of fat or yolk. Grease prevents the foam outright, and there is no recovering a bowl that had it partway through.
- The sugar went in gradually once the whites were already foaming, rather than all at once at the start.
- No grit: a little rubbed between finger and thumb feels smooth, so the sugar has dissolved into the foam rather than sitting in it.
- Stiff peaks means the tip stands with a slight bow when the whisk lifts, and the bowl can be tipped without the mass moving in it.
- Glossy and smooth rather than chalky or dull, with no liquid gathering underneath it in the bowl.
Where it goes wrong It was whipped past stiff peaks. A minute beyond glory the protein network tightens and tears, the foam turns grainy and matte, water weeps out beneath it, and folding that into anything gives a mixture that collapses on the way to the oven.
Tempering a custard 59 recipes
- The hot liquid went into the eggs a little at a time with constant whisking, and only then did everything go back to the pot.
- The heat under it stayed gentle throughout and it was never allowed to boil.
- Stirred continuously and right into the corners of the pan, where it thickens first and sets unnoticed.
- Judged by behaviour: it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon and hold a clean line when a finger is drawn through it.
- Taken off before it looks finished, and strained. Residual heat carries it the rest of the way, and a custard held on the heat until it looks right arrives past right.
Where it goes wrong The hot liquid went in too fast, or the pot went back over full heat to save time. The yolks set into threads before they could thicken smoothly, and a scrambled custard does not come back; straining hides a little of it and nothing hides the rest.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Sauternes
- Also Right
- Demi-sec Champagne
- From the Taps
- Belgian tripel
- Zero-Proof
- Jasmine tea
The sweetness rule is absolute: the pour must be sweeter than the plate, and acid keeps it from cloying.
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