Crème Pâtissière
Pastry cream — the mother of the pastry creams
What Béchamel is to the sauces, this is to pastry: a base that becomes four other creams depending on what you fold into it. Tarts, éclairs, mille-feuille, doughnuts, trifle — all of it starts here.
The one counterintuitive step is that it must boil. Pastry cream contains starch, and starch needs a full boil to thicken properly and to neutralise the enzyme in egg yolk that would otherwise thin it again in the fridge.
Ingredients
- 2 cups whole milk
- 1 vanilla bean, split and scraped (or 2 teaspoons vanilla extract)
- 6 large egg yolks
- 2/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold
Instructions
- Bring the milk to a bare simmer with the vanilla bean and its seeds. Take off the heat and leave to infuse for 15 minutes, then remove the pod.
- Whisk the yolks, sugar, cornstarch and salt together in a bowl until pale and smooth.
- Whisk about a third of the hot milk into the yolks to temper them, then pour the mixture back into the pan.
- Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly and getting into the corners of the pan, until it thickens. Keep whisking and let it boil for a full minute — it will look alarmingly thick, then loosen slightly. That is the starch cooking out.
- Off the heat, whisk in the cold butter.
- Pass through a fine sieve into a shallow dish. Press cling film directly onto the surface and chill for at least 3 hours.
- Whisk smooth before using — it sets to a solid block and needs waking up.
Notes
- Do not stop whisking. Pastry cream catches on the base of the pan in seconds.
- Keeps 3 days refrigerated. It does not freeze — the starch weeps on thawing.
- Derivatives: Mousseline (butter), Diplomate (whipped cream), Chiboust (meringue), Frangipane (almond).