One of the great things I learned by teaching others is to ask WHY.

There are a lot of recipes telling you: first you do this then you do that, follow by this and that. Even in a professional kitchen, you are so accustomed in doing things in a certain way until it becomes a routine or common sense. When being questioned, a more experienced chef/cook will probably answer: ”it’s just the way it’s done”.

Freshies in patisserie are like kids who like to ask lots of question. As papa or mama, sometimes you can get away with your kids endless question by saying: you will know it when you grow up. However, for eager freshies, they NEED AN ANSWER. Luckily, it’s convenient to perform some research on internet, and with the popularity of molecular gastronomy and food science, reference is usually readily available.

When making custard, why do you add half of the sugar to the milk and the other half to the egg?

Why not all into milk? or all into egg? Why half and half? Why not 1/4 and 3/4? Why? Why? Why?

1. If you add all your sugar into your milk, you may need to wait for a longer time for the milk to heat up before you can add to your egg.

2. If you add all your sugar into your egg, you may need to whisk it longer to ensure sugar and egg are mixed properly. Over-whisking will create too much air bubbles in your mixture. Too much air bubbles will affect the smoothness of custard like crème caramel.

3. Sugar is a poor heat conductor. By adding a layer of sugar on the bottom of a pan when heating milk can prevent milk from burning onto the pan.

So, actually in this case, it actually doesn’t matter how much you add your sugar into the milk IF your are mixing the milk, sugar and egg carefully. To be honest, sometimes, methods are just up to own preference or norm, no big theory. I’m definitely not a food scientist, but I believe understanding the WHYs behind the HOWs will give you more freedom to play around with a recipe.

Have fun WHY-ing.

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