Vegan Vanilla Custard

Everyone needs to know how to make Vegan Vanilla Custard. It's the perfect accompaniment to a range of delicious desserts. Find out how to make it below.

What is custard?

If you've found your way to this recipe then you probably already know what custard is. It's a sweet sauce that gets drizzled over everything from cake to crumbles in the UK. Many of us have fond memories of cold custard served up with school dinners when we were growing up.

To make custard from scratch you thicken milk (or cream) that has been infused with sugar and vanilla with egg.

In my house custard always came out of a carton. Birds Custard is the main brand in the UK and it makes a lovely thick, creamy custard just with the addition of hot milk (or even water).

How do you make custard vegan?

The usual ingredients of milk and egg clearly aren't vegan. To make Vegan Vanilla Custard we need to substitute these out with plant based ingredients. Then there's the question about sugar and vanilla...

Milk substitutes

For the milk this is easy, you can simply use your preferred plant milk and for this particular recipe I prefer to use soy milk.

The good thing about soy milk is that it is stable at high temperatures which makes it a good choice for cooking or make sauces like custard. It's also good because of its high protein content!

Just be mindful that you may want to add less sugar if you use a sweetened plant milk rather than an unsweetened one.

Egg substitutes

Substituting egg in my recipe for vegan vanilla custard is easy. All you need is cornflour!

First you infuse the plant milk with vanilla and sugar then you add a little to the cornflour, mix it well so you have a smooth paste and then slowly add it back into the rest of the milk.

You then stir it over a low heat until it's the perfect, velvet smooth consistency.

To find out more about egg and milk substitutes for use in vegan baking, check out my Big Vegan Baking Guide.

Sugar and vanilla

I've heard new vegans be concerned that some of their favourite baking ingredients, like sugar and vanilla, aren't vegan.

In the US sugar is sometimes made white using bone char but this isn't an issue in the UK. In the US, opt for natural, golden caster sugar and you won't have to worry about it having been processed with animal products.

As for vanilla, you may have heard that some vanilla flavouring comes from a gland in the butt of a beaver called castoreum! Whilst this may be the case in some places, vanilla extract is almost always vegan. To be sure that the vanilla you're using is all natural, make sure you're using a vanilla paste, a vanilla grinder or the whole bean like I do!

How to use vegan custard

There are many uses for vegan custard. You can use it in tarts and pastries, pour it over cakes, crumbles and other desserts or use it in layers of trifle or even fill doughnuts with it!

Check out some ideas for using it at the end of this post.

The recipe

This Vegan Vanilla Custard recipe is an important one to have in your repertoire once you move to a plant based diet.

Variations

If you want to change the flavour of this custard, you can add in other spices (like cardamom or cinnamon) or even add citrus fruits or chocolate!

The possibilities are endless.

If you like a really thick custard just add more cornflour!

How to use...

This custard is so versatile. You can use it to stuff doughnuts, pour over desserts or layer in trifles. Check out the recipes below.

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