I’m sharing with how to make silky and luxurious pastry cream or you may know it as creme patisserie.
It’s a perfect filling for eclairs, profiteroles, donuts, tarts and pastries and it’s not
too difficult to make.
Welcome to recipes by Carina where I share with you how to make classic and simply delicious
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We’re going to start by separating the 4 eggs.
This recipe is basically a thicker creamier custard than can be piped and holds its shape
so it contains almost the same ingredients.
I’m making this batch of pastry cream to fill Eclairs that I’ve made which you’ll
be able to find the recipe for on my channel.
If you would like the full recipe for this pastry cream it will be on my website as well
as the full measurements listed in the description box below.
We’ll need four large eggs for this recipe, if your’s are more towards the medium small
side I would recommend using 5 to get the custard pretty thick.
We only need the yolks here as we want to make the pastry cream really luxurious and
rich so set the whites aside in another bowl to use in a different recipe.
I would recommend trying out pavlova which is a perfect way of using up egg whites or
maybe having a go at macarons if you’ve never tried to make them before.
Egg whites also freeze really well so if you don’t want to use them right now throw them
in an airtight container and into the freezer for another day.
I’m just separating them by using the shells here but there are many different ways of
doing it, cracking the whole egg into your clean and dry hand and letting the whites
fall through your fingers into a bowl actually works really well and you don’t need to
worry about the yolk breaking.
Set the egg whites to the side and get started on the pastry cream.
We want to measure out 1/3 of a cup or 65g of white sugar.
You’ll notice I give the recipe amounts in cups and grams so no matter where you live
in the world you should find this recipe easy enough to follow.
I’m just using regular sugar here so it won’t all fully dissolve, you can use super
fine sugar if you have it on hand but it doesn’t make too much of a difference as we will be
heating it soon.
Pour the sugar into the bowl with the egg yolks and using your whisk start to mix the
ingredients together.
As you mix you’ll notice the egg yolks almost immediately starting to become more liquid.
This process won’t take too long, about a minute or two so there really is no need
to use an electric mixer, you’ll only need a whisk and a little muscle.
We want to incorporate some air here and start to dissolve the sugar.
You’re looking for the mixture to about double in volume and for it be light in colour
and at the ribbon stage.
Ribbon stage basically means when you lift the whisk up the egg will fall down in a ribbon
like way and stay on the surface rather than just falling straight down.
As you can see here it’s nearly at that stage but needs a little longer.
Let me know in the comments below what your favourite thing to fill with this pastry cream
would be.
Maybe Eclairs or custard donuts or maybe a custard tart with some fresh berries would
be incredibly delicious.
Once your egg mixture has doubled in volume and its thick and creamy we’re ready to
move on to the next step.
Measure out 2 tablespoons or 18g of white standard or all purpose flour and add it to
the bowl.
The flour along with the egg yolks is what is going to thicken the pastry cream to that
perfect consistency.
Using the whisk combine the flour with the egg mixture.
It should incorporate pretty easily, continue to whisk for another 30 seconds or so just
until you no longer have any lumps.
Set the bowl to the side while we move on to the next step.
In a medium sized saucepan measure out 1 cup or 25ml of whole milk.
Whole milk is best here for flavour and texture, I haven’t tried with any milk substitutes
but if you are dairy free they should work.
You may need a little more flour or an extra egg yolk to make sure to pastry cream thickens
enough.
Place the saucepan over medium heat for a few minutes until the milk just starts to
come to the boil.
You don’t want to boil it so keep a close eye on it and remove it just as you start
to see the first lot of bubbles.
We’re going to be tempering the egg yolks with the hot milk and this can be a little
tricky one handed so I’m placing a cloth underneath my bowl so it won’t move around
as I try to mix.
Remove the hot milk from the heat and while mixing with the whisk slowly start to incorporate
the milk bit by bit.
You want to be very slow at the start but once about half has been added you can pour
the rest in.
Take your bowl and pour the mixture back into the saucepan as we still need to heat it further.
Place the saucepan back on the heat making sure it’s on low at this point and start
slowly stir it.
This part is pretty important as it’s really easy to stuff it up and get a kind of sweet
scrambled egg mixture which we don’t want.
Don’t walk away, take your eyes off it or turn the heat up just stir continuously.
We want to heat the pastry cream until its boiling to cook out the egg yolks and thicken
it up but we don’t want the eggs to cook together and make the texture grainy.
You’ll notice as you stir it will slowly start to thicken, make sure your combining
everything well, getting all the sides of the saucepan.
It’ll go from pretty liquid to pretty set in a matter of a few minutes so just be patient
and keep the heat to low as it needs to be cooked slowly.
Once your pastry cream is thick remove it from the heat and place it into a bowl.
It’ll need to cool down in the fridge so it’s best to remove it from the saucepan.
You can see here just how thick it is, this is the texture you want.
The pastry cream doesn’t have a lot of flavour at the moment, it’s sweet and creamy like
frosting is but we want to add some kind of essence or zest.
I’m making standard pastry cream here so I’m using about a teaspoon of vanilla paste
but you can use any other type of essence or zest you would like.
I’m choosing vanilla paste to get the vanilla beans as I love the look of it with the pastry
cream.
Using a wooden spoon mix the ingredients together until smooth.
We’ll need to cool this before using but it forms a skin super easily to using plastic
wrap press it into the surface of your pastry cream before placing it into the fridge for
at least a few hours.
This is the most perfect filling for eclairs, profiteroles, donuts, tarts and pastries.
Let me know what your planning on using it for.
Thank you so much for watching, don’t forget to subscribe and I will see you in my next
video.