Pastry Cream (crème patissière)

Pastry Cream (crème patissière)

Pastry cream is an essential staple in any pastry kitchen as it is a very versatile cream used to fill cakes, fruit tarts, cream puffs, Éclairs, and other pastries

Ingredients

1 pint Milk

4oz Castor Sugar

Natural Vanilla Essence

4 Egg yolks

2oz Flour

Method

Place milk in a thick bottomed pan and put on the stove to heat

Meanwhile whisk the eggs and sugar in a bowl until almost white, then mix in the flour.

Whisk the hot milk onto the egg mixture, and then return it to a clean pan

Bring up to the boil stirring all the time with a wooden spoon until thickened,

Add a few drops of natural Vanilla essence

Remove from the heat and pour the mixture into a clean container to cool, sprinkle the surface with castor sugar to prevent a skin forming.

To make a light vanilla filling for your cake use equal parts of whipped cream and pastry cream, make sure you whip the pastry cream first to ensure you have no lumps then fold in the whipped cream.