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Basic Recipes

Crème Pâtissière (Vanilla Pastry Cream)

by Lisa

Trained pastry chef

A bowl of smooth, thick vanilla pastry cream

4.9 (18)out of 5, 18 ratings

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Prep
5 min
Bake
10 hr
Total
10 hr 5 min
Makes
1

Vanilla pastry cream works for so many things. For filling cakes, eclairs or macarons! Yum :)

Notes:

Read more

• Great for filling tartlets or fruit tarts.
• Mix 1:1 with whipped heavy cream (German cream for whipping has about 30 to 32 percent fat; in the US use heavy cream or heavy whipping cream, in the UK whipping cream, as double cream also works but whips faster, so watch it) and use it as a filling for Bienenstich (German bee sting cake).
• Use it up within a few days.
• Sometimes it helps to stir 2 soaked sheets of gelatin into the still warm cream to give it a little more body (German sheets weigh about 1.7 g each; in the US use unflavored powdered gelatin, about ½ tsp per sheet, bloomed in cold water; in the UK use leaf gelatine, weighed, or powdered gelatine).

Ingredients

Makes 1

  • ½ cup plus 2 tbsp125 ggranulated sugar
  • 3egg yolks
  • 1large egg
  • ½ cup60 gall-purpose flourIn German recipes plain flour means soft wheat flour Type 405 unless stated otherwise. In the US use all-purpose flour; in the UK, plain flour.
  • 2 cups plus 1 tbsp0.5 lmilk
  • 1vanilla beanA whole vanilla pod; the seeds are scraped out and used. In the US use a vanilla bean, or 1 tsp vanilla bean paste per bean; in the UK, a vanilla pod, or 1 tsp vanilla bean paste per pod.

Method

  1. Stir the sugar and flour together. Add the egg yolks and the egg and whisk vigorously again.

  2. Bring the milk to a boil with the vanilla seeds and the scraped-out vanilla bean.

  3. Pour a small splash of the boiling milk into the flour, egg and sugar mixture and whisk hard. Add a splash of milk 2 more times, then pour the whole mixture into the boiling milk and let it boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly.

  4. Remove the vanilla bean, transfer the cream to a bowl and cover it with plastic wrap so the wrap touches the surface of the still hot cream (this keeps a skin from forming).

  5. Let it cool, then use it however you like.