How many calories in custard? Ready-made, powder, homemade and US custard

Custard is the topping people feel guilty about and should not.

Ready-made pouring custard is about 100 kcal per 100ml. That makes it lighter per spoonful than every cream on the dessert table, and about half the density of ice cream. It is mostly milk, with a little sugar and starch.

The trap is the jug. Custard is poured, not measured, and a carton of it disappears faster than a tub of cream ever would.

The quick answer

Calories by the pour

For a thick sauce like custard, 100ml weighs a little over 100g. The difference is a few calories a bowl, so treat the two as the same.

Custard against the other toppings

This is the correction. Custard looks like the heavy option because it is yellow, warm and served in quantity. Per spoonful it is the lightest thing you can pour on a pudding.

A proper 150ml pour of custard is 150 kcal. Two tablespoons of double cream are 134. You get five times as much on the plate for 16 more calories. Clotted cream is about six times as dense as custard.

The catch is that people pour custard by the bowl and cream by the spoon. A 200ml ladle of custard is 200 kcal, more than any cream portion in the table. The figures above are the same ones used in the Christmas pudding breakdown and the mince pie breakdown.

Custard powder: the milk decides it

Custard powder is mostly cornflour with colour and flavour. It has no egg in it. The usual method is 25g of powder and 25g of sugar to a pint (568ml) of milk.

The milk is about 60% of the pan. The powder is less than a fifth. So the swap that matters is the milk, the same as in a hot chocolate. Semi-skimmed instead of whole saves 85 kcal across the pan. Cutting the sugar to 15g saves another 40.

The figures for each milk come from the milk calorie breakdown.

Homemade custard: yolks and cream

Proper custard, the kind a recipe calls crème anglaise, is thickened with egg yolks instead of starch. That makes it richer, and the cream makes it richer again.

The four yolks are about 220 kcal in either version. The double cream is the jump, adding about 600 kcal across the pan. Cream-enriched custard is the usual restaurant recipe, and it makes a custard more than twice as dense as the ready-made carton.

So the homemade version is not the light one, and the carton is not the indulgent one. It is the other way round.

Typical nutrition

Typical figures for standard ready-made custard.

About a third of the sugar is lactose from the milk. The rest is added. A 150ml pour carries about 11g of added sugar, which is over a third of the NHS daily limit of 30g of free sugars for adults.

The protein is modest, about 4.5g in a 150ml pour. Custard is a dessert that happens to be made of milk, not a protein food. If you want a pudding that does more, Greek yogurt carries about three times the protein per spoonful.

What it adds to the things it goes on

In every row the pudding is the larger number. Custard is between a quarter and a third of the bowl. That makes the pudding portion the better place to save, and keeping the custard the better way to make a small portion feel like a full one.

UK and US words that trip up logging

• Custard. In the UK, a warm pouring sauce. In the US, usually a set dessert baked in a dish, about 120 kcal per 100g.
• Frozen custard. A US ice cream made with egg yolk, dense and slowly churned, at about 240 kcal per 100g. Log it as ice cream, not as custard.
• Crème anglaise. The French name for homemade pouring custard. On a restaurant menu, assume the cream version.
• Crème pâtissière, pastry cream. Custard thickened with flour and yolks until it holds its shape, used in tarts and éclairs. Denser than pouring custard.
• Pudding. In the US, a starch-set dessert close to a thick custard made from powder. In the UK, pudding can mean any dessert, or a Christmas pudding, or a Yorkshire pudding.
• Flan, crème caramel. A baked custard turned out with caramel. Log by weight at about 140 kcal per 100g.
• Custard slice, vanilla slice. A pastry, not a custard. The puff pastry is most of it.
• Custard cream. A biscuit at 61 kcal, with no custard in it.

Custard mistakes to avoid

Logging "custard" as a US dessert

A database entry for baked custard or frozen custard will be 20% to 140% heavier than a British pouring custard. Check what the entry describes.

Logging the dry powder

Custard powder is about 350 kcal per 100g dry, because it is mostly cornflour. Log the custard you made, by the milk you used.

Counting the bowl as one pour

A pour is 100 to 150ml. A bowl filled to the rim around a sponge can be 250ml. At 1 kcal per ml the difference is 100 to 150 kcal.

Choosing cream to save calories

Two tablespoons of double cream are lighter than a big pour of custard. A sensible pour of custard is lighter than any amount of cream that covers the same pudding.

Three ways to do it

The everyday pot (125 kcal)

• One 125g ready-made pot (125 kcal)

Adds up to: 125 kcal, portioned for you. The pot stops the second pour.

The Sunday jug (460 kcal)

• 568ml semi-skimmed milk (273 kcal)
• 25g custard powder (87 kcal)
• 25g sugar (100 kcal)

Adds up to: about 77 kcal per 100ml, or about 115 per 150ml pour, enough for four. Use 15g of sugar and it drops to about 70.

The lightest pour (108 kcal)

• 150ml light ready-made custard (108 kcal)

Adds up to: 108 kcal. The light cartons taste close to the standard ones and save about a quarter.

The verdict

Ready-made custard is about 100 kcal per 100ml, so a proper 150ml pour is 150. Per spoonful it is lighter than single cream, double cream, brandy butter or ice cream.

Custard from powder follows the milk. Homemade custard with cream is more than twice the carton. US custard is a different dessert.

If you change one thing, keep the custard and pour it into a measured 150ml, not a bowl.

Pairs well with: the Christmas pudding calorie breakdown, the mince pie calorie breakdown, and the milk calorie breakdown.