How To Make Custard With Skimmed Milk

When I asked what you wanted to see on this blog, someone said they’d like some recipes as I am always cooking and baking. Happy to oblige, here is my custard recipe. It’s not from scratch using eggs or anything fancy, but it is ‘proper’ custard as in custard powder and milk, none of this instant nonsense. Making custard is not difficult, but when I switched to skimmed milk last year I suddenly found I’d lost my knack. The milk kept burning on the bottom of the pan and custard that tastes of burnt milk is not good. So I thought I’d share my tips for making my healthy custard. This has 2PP per portion on Weight Watchers if you make it like this.

You will need (per person – scale up as necessary)
¼ pint skimmed milk (plus 1 dessert spoon for mixing)
1 heaped dessert spoon custard powder
½ dessert spoon sucralose sweetener (you can use white sugar but it will be more WW points)


Put the ¼ milk into a pan and put it on a high heat
Mix the sweetener, custard powder and the rest of the milk together in a jug (you may need to add a little more if it won’t mix) until you have a smooth mix with no lumps.
When the milk starts to steam in the pan, pour it into the jug and mix. Now here’s the trick. Pour the whole lot back into the pan and heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens.

Ordinarily when making custard you’re supposed to heat the milk until it boils but I found that this is when it started to catch and burn on the bottom of the pan when using skimmed milk. By making it into custard part way through heating, then putting it back in to thicken it won’t burn and you will have fabulous custard!