Vanilla Custard Sauce

5 from 4 votes

This vanilla custard sauce is creamy, and smooth and perfect for pairing with a cake!

Prep Time30

Cook Time20

Chilling Time4

Total Time4 50

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Servings: cups

Calories: 786kcal

Prepare your bowls. You want to place a fine-mesh sieve over a medium metal bowl. And then fill a large bowl with ice water. Set them aside.
Combine your wet ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the sugar, egg yolks, and salt.
Heat milk and cream. You want to heat the milk and cream over medium heat until steaming. Do not let it boil.
Add heated milk/cream to egg mixture. Add the heated milk/cream to the egg mixture gradually, so as not to scramble the eggs. Return the mixture to the saucepan, and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and coats the back of a spoon and holds a trail when you drag your finger through it, about 10 to 20 minutes.
Strain the custard. Strain the custard through the sieve. And place that bowl of strained custard into the bowl of ice water and whisk until the mixture is about 70F. Add vanilla. Loosely cover it and refrigerate the custard until it's chilled (about 3 to 4 hours).

Storage/Make Ahead: This sauce will last in the fridge covered for about 3-4 days.
Flavoring: When heating the milk and cream, you can steep in other spices, herbs, and nuts. Steep for an hour in the hot milk mixture then strain it. Make sure it's steeping off the stove. If you're adding a flavoring or extract, I would add it at the end once the custard is strained and cooled.
Fix a curdled sauce: Add the sauce into a blender, blend it and it will come back together.
Serving: This vanilla custard sauce can be served hot or cold. If you want to serve it hot, then reheat it over a double boiler, or over very low heat while stirring so as to ensure it's not curdled.