BAKED CHOCOLATE CUSTARD from Very Best Baking

This recipe is from Very Best Baking, home to Nestle, Carnation, and Libby's. I've been making this custard for probably at least 13 years. After the first time or two I made it I decided to add melted chocolate to it. I add 1/2 c. milk chocolate chips, which I melt in part of the evaporated milk, which I heat first. Adding that amount of chocolate doesn't affect the consistency at all. I've tried using unsweetened cocoa powder as well as melted semi-sweet chocolate in this and they're all very bitter, so I stick with milk chocolate. The chocolate is mild. For some reason the tops of the custard is always a darker brown than the rest. I used less salt, too.

I divide my mixture into five small bowls, each using almost 3/4 c. of mixture, and they baked in exactly 30 minutes but I think they were slightly overcooked. My knife came out with a few bits of firm custard on it. If you follow their recipe and use six dishes, since you have less mixture in each than if you used just five like I do, yours should take less than the 30 minutes mine took, but they tell you 35 minutes for six dishes. For some reason the tops of these are always a darker brown than the custard, which is a pale brown.

I grade the original and my version of this an A.