Description
Ultra smooth rich vanilla custard you can use to fill pies, tarts, pastries, donuts or as a base for German buttercream. Anytime you want a nice pudding filling, a batch of pastry cream will get you there. Similar to the pourable custard creme anglaise, this pastry cream (aka creme patisserie) is thick enough to pipe.
Ingredients
Scale
- 2 cups whole milk (472 mL)
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar (66 g)
- 4 Tablespoons arrowroot starch (36 g)
- Pinch of salt
- 4 large egg yolks
- 2 Tablespoons butter (28 g)
- 1 tsp vanilla paste or vanilla extract
Instructions
- Warm the milk in a heavy bottomed pot over medium low heat.
- Meanwhile, whisk the sugar, starch, and salt together in a small bowl.
- Add the egg yolks in and whisk to combine everything. At first, the mixture will be very thick, but keep whisking for about a minute and the sugar will start to dissolve into the eggs and the mixture will loosen up. Keep whisking until the egg yolks lighten a little in color.
- When you see bubbles around the edge of the pot, turn off the heat.
- Dribble a tiny amount of milk into the egg mixture and whisk to incorporate it.
- Keep whisking as you continue to dribble in a little bit of hot milk at a time. This will make sure that the eggs heat up gradually and don’t scramble.
- Once you’ve mixed in all of the milk into the bowl, pour the contents back into the pot.
- Turn the heat back on to medium and whisk continuously until the pastry cream just barely starts to thicken. You’ll start to feel some resistance as you’re whisking.
- Stop whisking long enough to notice the top of the liquid. Once there are big bubbles that expand and pop, time 1 minute. In that minute, the pastry cream should thicken considerably. You want it to be thick enough that it will sit on a spoon and not just pour right off it. This picture is just a little bit too runny:
- Once the pastry cream has thickened well, take it immediately off the heat and add the butter and vanilla.
- Pour the cream back into the bowl you used early or another container and press a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the cream. This will prevent a gross skin from forming on the top.
- Chill the cream in the fridge for several hours or overnight.
- You can make your pastry cream up to 3 days ahead of time, keeping it covered in the fridge until use.
Notes
- Richer pastry cream: use half milk and half cream or half and half for a fattier more rich tasting cream.
- What kind of starch?: You can use cornstarch, arrowroot, or potato starch in this recipe. My first choice is arrowroot as it produces a very silky smooth pastry cream. Still, cornstarch is great for anything you bake (as in a German puddingbrezel). I also often use potato starch in my German buttercream. You can also use half flour half starch as my Gram never failed to do for her cream pies. The point is, all starch works here–use what you have or what your conscience dictates.
- Why the flat whisk?: I love a flat whisk as it can dig into the corners of your pot as you’re stirring better than a regular balloon whisk. Because of this, the bottom is less likely to scorch. Use a regular whisk if that’s what you have, but be sure to dig into the corners as best as you can.
- Vanilla sugar: If you’d like to use vanilla sugar, omit the vanilla paste/extract and substitute the sugar for 1 tablespoon of vanilla sugar plus 4 Tablespoons of regular granulated sugar.
- Prep Time: 3 minutes
- Additional Time: 4 hours
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Category: Baking building blocks
- Cuisine: French
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1/4 cup
- Calories: 138
- Sugar: 11
- Sodium: 54
- Fat: 7
- Saturated Fat: 3
- Carbohydrates: 15
- Fiber: 0
- Protein: 3
- Cholesterol: 106