Fruit Custard | Fruit Salad

Fruit custard or fruit salad is a simple Indian dessert made with just three ingredients. A smooth and creamy custard sauce can be made easily in the Instant Pot or stovetop and then served with seasonal fruits of your choice.

This is an eggless fruit custard recipe made using custard powder unlike the other type of custard that uses eggs. It can be made effortlessly for parties, potlucks, or any occasion and is a crowd pleaser dessert.

Making custard at home is an easy two-step process. Just make a mixture of custard powder and cold milk and add it to boiling milk. Cook it for a few minutes until it thickens to a custard sauce consistency.

Ingredients

This is an Indian eggless fruit custard recipe and made with mainly 3 ingredients, milk, sugar, and custard powder.

I have used the vanilla custard powder but you can use mango, strawberry, or orange flavors too.

Custard powder is available in most of the grocery stores, super market or online. I personally like to use Brown and Polson custard powder and had great success with Bird's custard powder too.

Instant Pot instructions

To make custard in the instant pot, pour milk in the container and press yogurt mode until it shows boil. Close and lock the lid.

In the mean time in a small bowl, make a mixture of custard powder and some milk (must be cold). Mix it well with a whisk to ensure there are no lumps.

Once the milk is boiled, the instant pot will show "yogt" on the display. Open the lid and press cancel followed by pressing sauté mode on the normal setting. Add the sugar, custard powder, and milk mixture and stir it.

The custard will start to thicken, cook for a few minutes until it is of desired consistency. You don't want it to be too thick as it will harden further once it is chilled in the refrigerator.

Once it thickens, press cancel and remove the container from the instant pot to stop cooking it further. Allow it to cool down before refrigerating.

Stovetop instructions

In a heavy bottom saucepan, boil the milk and sugar on medium heat. You will need to monitor it to avoid any spillage. Also, scrape the bottom intermittently to avoid milk from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Make the custard mixture by mixing some cold milk and custard powder. Mix it well with the help of a whisk to ensure there are no lumps.

Once milk is boiled, lower the heat to medium and add the custard mixture to the boiling milk. To make a perfect custard, continue stirring the custard sauce and scraping the bottom of the pan to avoid it from sticking.

Serving suggestions

Chill the custard for at least 2-3 hours in the fridge and let it harden further. Once the custard is chilled, whisk it to make a smooth custard sauce and top it with your favorite fruits.

Custard tastes best when served chilled but it can be served at room temperature too. You can add fruits like grapes, pomegranate, strawberries, apples, blueberries, banana, mango or even candied fruit like tutti frutti. However, do not add any citrus fruits.

Dry fruits or nuts like cashews and pistachios can be added for garnishing. You can also serve it with your favorite ice cream.

Equipment

The main task to make custard is to boil milk. I have used the 3 qt. Instant Pot to boil milk and a larger Instant Pot can also be used. For the stovetop a 3 qt. saucepan can be used to ensure milk does not spill over.

A hand whisk comes in very handy to whisk the custard powder in milk and avoid any lumps.

Storage

Custard can be stored in the fridge for 2-3 days. I do not add fruits to the custard while refrigerating but only when serving it. This way the fruits in the fruit salad are fresh while serving.

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