Crème Pâtissière- Vanilla Pastry Cream

Crème pâtissière or vanilla pastry cream is a cooked egg custard thickened with cornstarch in addition to egg. It can be used in a variety of recipes or eaten as is. If you ever watch The Great British Bake Off, they call this creme pat!

This pastry cream is an essential ingredient if you want to make the classic French treat, pain aux raisins. It is spread on the flattened dough which is then rolled up with raisins, sliced into spirals and baked till golden. I’ll be sharing my cheater version using store-bought puff pastry tomorrow.

It is also lovely used to top a pavlova before adding fruit to serve and is the typical filling for profiteroles. Or truly, you can eat it with a spoon.

Crème Pâtissière - Vanilla Pastry Cream

In France bakers would probably use vanilla sugar or vanilla paste in this recipe. If you have real vanilla extract or essence, that works just as nicely. 

Ingredients to make about 1 1/4 cups or 300ml

1 cup or 240ml milk

3 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons cornstarch (US) or cornflour (UK)

1 large egg

Pinch fine sea salt 

1 1/2 tablespoons butter, softened

1 1/2 teaspoons real vanilla extract

Method

Heat the milk over medium high heat and bring it to a simmer, till it just starts to steam. 

While heating the milk, place the sugar, cornstarch, egg and salt in a bowl. Whisk until you have a thick, smooth mixture. 

Place the bowl with the egg mixture on a towel or napkin (to prevent the bowl from slipping while whisking in the next step), and set aside until the milk just starts to steam. 

Slowly pour the hot milk in a thin stream into the egg mix, WHILE WHISKING CONSTANTLY to temper the egg mix. 

Pour it all back into the saucepan. 

Heat over a medium heat, while whisking vigorously until it starts to thicken. This should take about 1 – 2 minutes depending on the heat of your stove and size of your saucepan. Do not neglect whisking every part of the pan to make sure the mixture isn’t catching and lumps aren’t forming. 

Keep cooking and whisking until it’s really thick and a spoon pulled through the pastry cream leaves a gap that doesn’t refill. 

Remove from the heat and whisk in the butter and vanilla extract until they are completely mixed in.

Pour the pastry cream into a bowl and immediately cover the surface with plastic wrap, making sure the plastic wrap is touching the whole surface. This is to prevent a skin from forming on top. 

Pop the pastry cream in the refrigerator for a few hours, until completely chilled and set.

Use as needed or eat with a spoon.

Enjoy! 

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