Crème pâtissière,
Pastry cream,
Custard,
This delicious thick, creamy, velvety cream is know by a few names, but the one I really hate and can’t get my head around is,
Crème Pat!
How can you take such a lovely word crème pâtissière and shorten it to crème pat!
It reminds me of cow pat!
I don’t know, and I really don’t want to either (“,)
Crème Pâtissière was something I struggled with for many years,
My cream would either end up being the perfect texture but too lumpy, or silky smooth and too runny lol
So we would end up eating mille feuilles with hard floury bits between the crisps layers, or the funniest one, profiteroles filled with a runny, I mean as runny as water pastry cream ha ha. The pastry cream was soooo….. runny I couldn’t pipe them into the profiteroles properly coz the crème pâtissière would run out down the sides of the choux pastry (“,)
It was a disaster!
We had to eat crisp empty choux pastry in a soupy sea of runny custard.
But with a lot of trial and error, and sieving cream,
A lot of cream,
Have you tried to wash a fine sieve after pushing through hard lumpy custard through it, and it has been sitting drying in the sink for a few hours?
Don’t try it!
Learn from me and wash it straight away (“,)
So getting back to the perfect crème pâtissière, it takes time, a low heat, a whisk, a spoon and faith you can whisk vigorously enough with now heat to achieve the best custard you have ever made.
If you watch my video below you will see how many times I alternate my whisk and my spoon paying close attention to the bottom and sides of my pan, my heat is on low and the not on the heat at all and you will see my pastry cream look curdled, but that is the time to take it off of the heat and whisk vigorously
Ingredients
- 300ml milk
- 1tsp vanilla bean paste or a vanilla bean pod
- 3 egg yolks
- 55g sugar
- 20g plain flour sifted
- 20g corn flour sifted
- Large sauce pan
- 2 Bowls
- Sieve
- Whisk
- Spoon
- Cling film
Instructions
- Heat your milk and vanilla on a low heat until it starts to boil
- Whilst your milk is heating add your sugar to your eggs and whisk them together until you no longer can see any sugar
- Get a spoon and run it around the bottom edges of your bowl to get any lumps of sugar that maybe hiding and whisk again
- Add your flour and corn flour to your eggs and using your spoon stir everything together making sure to scrape the bottom edges and sides of your bowl until everything has been incorporated
- Then get your whisk and whisk everything together until it is silky smooth. If you miss this step you are guaranteed to have a lumpy cream.
- Your vanillary milk should be starting to boil so take it off of the heat and add 1/4 of your milk to your egg mixture and whisk everything together. You only add 1/4 of your milk to get your eggs used to the milks temperature before you add it all. If we added all our hot milk at once we'd end up cooking our eggs straight away and end up with a lumpy scrambled egg custard.
- When your milk has been fully incorporated add the rest of your milk and whisk it all in
- Now get your spoon and start looking for any bits sticking to the sides or bottom of your bowl then add your mixture back in to your pan and turn your heat on low and keep whisking continuously. If you think nothing is happening get out your trusted good old spoon and run it around your pans edges and you'll see a lump. This is a good sign because our flour and corn flour is thickening our crème pâtissière.
- Add your lump back to your pan and whisk it in vigorously so you break it up and incorporate it back into your mixture
- After a minute or two your mixture will start to curdle (check the video below to see what I mean) Don't worry. Unstick all the lumps from the bottom and sides of your pan and take it off of the heat and continue whisking. Taking your mixture off of the heat stops your custard cooking too quickly and creating a lumpy cream. But because the pan is still hot, it'll carry on cooking the flour and corn flour and your continued whisking will keep everything moving whilst thickening at the same time.
- When your crème pâtissière is silky smooth like my one in the video below, pour it into a clean bowl and cover it with cling film. Make sure your cling film is touching your crème to stop a skin forming and once it has cooled put it in the fridge until you need it.
Notes
You can pimp up your crème pâtissière with many different flavours like lemon zest (or othe citrus fruit zest), cocoa powder for a chocolate custard, coffee, tea, freeze dried fruit powders, alcohol, extracts of your choice.... Your options are endless. Just follow yout taste buds (",)
Here is the video showing you each step, enjoy (“,)
Crème pâtissière can be used to many desserts like pies, tarts, pastries, napoleons, profiteroles. But, my favourite is using it in my profiterole salted caramel trifle (“,)
How do you like to eat your crème pâtissière?
Leave a Reply