Many Times I’ve Baked Egg Custard – But This Time Something Went Terribly Wrong –

The evening hours were dwindling away when I decided to make a batch of egg custard. This is a recipe that is simple and the entire process from start to finish should have taken only 45 or 50 minutes including the baking time. After two hours I finally had my custard cooling on the counter.

Something went wrong and this is how it happened. I had poured the custard mixture into the cups and shaken ground nutmeg onto their tops. Next I emptied my teapot full of boiling hot water into the baking pan creating the necessary hot water bath for egg custard. I opened the oven door and attempted to slide the heavy pan into it carefully. Somehow I slipped. Don’t ask me how. But in correcting myself, I jiggled the pan. The sudden movement triggered a tsunami inside the pan. The water shifted to one side of the pan and on its way back to the other side, hot water covered all the cups of custard. As the cups were sliding back and forth, they lost their contents into the water. Hanging onto the pan and trying to balance it, I called for Steve.

As hilarious as this scene may have appeared, I wasn’t laughing yet. Steve, my hero, came running to help me. He took the rocking pan out of my hands and together we cleaned up my mess. The custard you see is the second batch. As you might have guessed, the first was a total loss. We laughed a lot once the crisis was past. Steve told me to call him before I put the pan in the oven next time, so I did, and he slid it in for me, and my custard was a success.