National Chocolate Custard Day Date in the current year: May 3, 2024

The term “custard” can refer to a variety of sweet dishes that are based on milk or cream that is thickened with eggs or egg yolks, corn starch, flour, or gelatin. The ingredients are typically whipped together and then heated very gently on a stove or cooked in a water bath. The resulting dish may vary in consistency from a light and thin pouring sauce to a thick cream. Custard is considered hard to cook because even a seemingly insignificant increase in temperature can lead to curdling.

Custard can be served on its own, baked in pastry, or used to fill éclairs, profiteroles, donuts, pies, and tarts. It can also be used as an ingredient in layered desserts, a base for baked desserts like crème brûlée, a cupcake frosting, and as a dessert cream or sauce.

Custard tarts (baked desserts consisting of a pastry crust filled with egg custard) have been known since the Middle Ages. In fact, the word “custard” derives from the Latin word crustāta, which can be roughly translated as “encrusted”. Today, custard is especially popular in French cuisine, where its variations even have their own names:

• Crème anglaise (pouring custard): a light, sweetened dessert sauce consisting of milk, sugar, and egg yolks, and flavored with vanilla and sometimes also other flavoring agents.
• Crème anglaise collée: pouring custard that is additionally thickened with gelatin.
• Crème bavaroise (Bavarian cream): custard with gelatin and whipped cream folded in.
• Crème pâtissière (confectioners’ custard or pastry cream): custard thickened with flour or starch.
• Crème Saint-Honoré: crème pâtissière enriched with stiffly beaten egg whites.
• Blancmange: custard made without eggs and thickened with flour, starch or gelatin.

Both pouring custard and pastry cream can be flavored with cocoa powder or melted chocolate. Chocolate custard probably originated sometime in the late 19th century; an early recipe for chocolate-flavored custard can be found in the 1918 edition of The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book by Fannie Farmer. Just like “plain” vanilla custard, it can be enjoyed on its own or used in other desserts.

National Chocolate Custard Day is one of those food holidays with murky origins, but do you really need to know the full history of a holiday in order to observe it? You can celebrate this amazing food day by ordering chocolate custard for dessert at your favorite restaurant, making chocolate custard at home, sharing your favorite chocolate custard recipes with others, and posting about the holiday on social media with the hashtags #NationalChocolateCustardDay and #ChocolateCustardDay to spread the word.

National Chocolate Custard Day is not the only custard-inspired holiday out there. If you love custard and will use any excuse to indulge in your favorite treat, you can also celebrate National Vanilla Custard Day on August 17 and National Caramel Custard Day on October 3.