Chocolate and Caramel Tarts

Does anyone else dislike condensed milk? Well, I hate it. I can hear my mum now, telling me, "Don't say hate, it's a very strong word". Well, I haaaate it. Sorry if you do like it though. I don't find it disgusting, I just find the milk powdery taste rather...overpowering.  Buuut...I like caramel? Besides there are those recipes that boil a can of condensed milk for about 5 hours, and then have to wait for it to cool so it doesn't explode. I'm making it from scratch. Hey, I think it's likier to fail this way (i.e. crystallisation)...but I like the flavour a lot better and it's faster. I also don't own a candy thermometer and I've always bluffed my way through these recipes...they always work.

By the way, I was searching up pictures of caramel tarts...and I just wanted to say that I don't want to see soft ganache style chocolate and runny caramel. I want a chocolate topping that SNAPS and caramel that is not runny, not chewy/hard but just right. It should provide (I sound kinda formal here?) that slight resistance when you bite into it and teeth marks will be visible and...combine that with the flaky pastry and... I wanna another one.

Classic Custard

 

Here's another blog post.
About custard. Sans butter. BUT WAIT! It has thickened cream and full cream milk.

It uses four egg yolks, leftover from the Angel Cake. Although, I usually make custard with the whole egg since I normally don't know what to do with the whites.

This custard can be used to make ice-cream, but it'll probably need more sugar. I'm guessing maybe 1/3 of a cup instead of 1/4?

Anyway. So I was going to use a double boiler, considering its way more foolproof. I wanted to be able to walk away for a little while without coming back to see it had boiled and curdled and died and gone to heaven.