Pastry cream is one of those things that everyone should know how to make! Best of all, it is so easy to put together for something that is absolutely delicious.
You can use pastry cream to fill pastries - hello eclairs and churros! It makes a great filling for pies like Boston Cream and you can use it as a custard for a beautiful trifle. It has a lot of uses, but honestly, it’s so good you could even eat it with a spoon just by itself.
All you need is milk, cornstarch, salt, eggs, flavouring and butter. I’m using the best wild vanilla beans from my friends at Akih vanilla in Oaxaca, but if you add cocoa powder then you have a chocolate pastry cream. Adding almond extract would give it and almond flavour, and orange zest would give it a citrus twist.
I wanted to dress up some very special French Toast I had for Easter brunch. Since I cannot go eat with my favourite Chef in Monterrey (that is Pepe, from Yokot’an) I am channeling him with this recipe. If you live in the City of Mountains, you need to go try his French toast, it is absolutely divine.
So what do you think? Will you make some? It will transform your French Toast!
Vanilla Bean Pastry Cream
2 cups whole milk
1 vanilla bean, split and seed scraped, or 1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup white sugar
3 Tbsp cornstarch
Pinch of salt
4 egg yolks from 4 large eggs
2 Tbsp unsalted butter
In medium saucepan, over medium heat, place milk and add vanilla bean and seeds.
Bring to a simmer and then turn off the heat. Cover the pan and steep for 20-30 minutes.
* If using vanilla extract, you can skip this step and add the extract to the milk. In this case, the milk does not need to be heated.
Meanwhile in small bowl, whisk together the sugar, cornstarch and salt.
In medium bowl, whisk egg yolks and add dry ingredients. Whisk vigorously (mixture may be stiff at first) until mixture is a pale yellow colour and everything is combined.
Remove vanilla bean from milk mixture and start adding the warm milk very slowly into the egg mixture - start in a thin stream so you can temper the egg yolks. Once you have about half of the mixture incorporated, you can pour a bit faster. Whisk until everything is combined and then pour mixture back into the saucepan.
Place on the stove over medium heat and whisk constantly until mixture is thickened. It will start bubbling up. Once it does, cook for another minute, then remove from heat and whisk in butter.
Pour mixture through a sieve into a medium bowl and cover immediately with plastic. Make sure it’s touching the custard so it does not form a skin.
If you are using the cream right away, cool it quickly by setting the bowl over an ice bath and whisk until cooled. Otherwise, you can let it cool for 10 minutes on the counter, then refrigerate until chilled.
Pastry cream lasts for about 3 days in the fridge.
Makes about 2 1/2 cups.