How To Make Custard

This simple Fruit Custard recipe combines fresh fruit with a creamy vanilla custard. This quick and healthy dessert won’t need to be baked. Follow my video and photos to learn how to make this delicious fruit salad with custard.

About Fruit Custard

One of my favorite childhood desserts is fruit custard. We used to eat Carrot Halwa and Rice Kheer as a kid. For sweet treats, we would have fruit custards like this one.

My Mom used fruit jelly to decorate the fruit custard. Sometimes, it was just plain fruit custard. My mind can still see the labels of the Brown & Polson and Crown brand custard powders and the jars filled with Rex brand jelly. It’s amazing how food can transport you back in time!

NOTE – While I used boxed custard powder for this recipe, I also have an eggless version of Vanilla Custard on the site.

Fruit custard is a fruit mixture with custard sauce. The name fruit salad also knows as this delicious dessert with custard. Depending on how you make your fruit salad, you can add toasted nuts, dried fruits, or vegetarian mini marshmallows.

This may remind you of the American version of ambrosia, also known as the 24-Hour Salad. This delicious fruit salad with custard is excellent as a dessert.

Tips and Tricks for Fruit Custard

You can make fruit custard with either dairy milk or plant-based. It can be made with dairy or plant-based milk, but I prefer almond milk if I go vegan. The steps for making custard with dairy milk are shown in the photos. I have provided the instructions below for making almond milk custard.

You can use jaggery instead of almond milk to reduce the amount of sugar in this fruit salad and custard. It would help to be cautious when adding jaggery to dairy milk, as it can curdle. Add jaggery to the custard once it has warmed.

Add seasonal fruits to your diet, but avoid melons and citrus fruits. Both melons and citrus fruits are incompatible with milk and can cause indigestion. To the fruit custard, you can add dried fruits and nuts.

Make fruit custard using only cornstarch, arrowroot flour, or tapioca starch. Mix it with three tablespoons of warm milk according to the recipe. Add 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence or one teaspoon vanilla extract to this mixture when making the paste or slurry.

Make Custard

Heat 2.5 cups of milk in a saucepan or thick-bottomed pan on the stovetop. Bring the milk to a gentle simmer.

Take three tablespoons of warm milk or room temperature in a small bowl while the milk is heating up. Add three tablespoons of custard flour.

The three tablespoons of warm milk can be taken from the heated milk, or you can warm the three tablespoons separately in a microwave oven.

Use a whisk to mix the ingredients well.

Add five tablespoons of sugar to the milk once it has been brought to a gentle boil. Mix well to dissolve the sugar.

Turn the flame to low, then add the custard paste/slurry in small portions.

Stir the custard mixture quickly after adding it to the bowl. Please continue with the rest of the custard paste by working in batches or drizzling it slowly as you whisk.

Keep stirring the custard often during cooking to prevent lumps from forming. Cook the custard for 5-6 minutes on low heat.

The mixture will thicken slowly, and the original taste of the cornstarch in the custard powder will also disappear.

Place the custard into a bowl. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel. Allow it to cool at room temperature. Place the bowl in the refrigerator with a lid if you intend to serve the cold fruit custard.

Cook for a few minutes more to make a thicker custard. The custard will thicken as it cools. To chill the custard before you add the fruits, keep it in the fridge.

Chop the fruits. To make fruit custard, I recommend using seasonal fruits. Avoid citrus fruits, pineapples, and melons. These fruits were: papaya, bananas, strawberries, pomegranate, and bananas.