Pastry Cream is one of the most important building blocks of French pastry and can be made in less than 30 minutes. From cream puffs to eclairs, mille-feuille (Napolean pastry), fruit tarts and cake fillings like my American favorite Boston Cream Pie. While basically a thick vanilla custard or pudding, it can be flavored almost any way you can think of.
This is a deep dive into the fascinating French filling that serves so many purposes.
Cooked on the stove using milk, sugar, egg yolks and a thickener, it becomes a thick, smooth and glossy vanilla pastry cream that is a blank canvas to be used in countless applications.
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For other uses for pastry cream please see: Double Banana Cream Pie, Coconut Cream Pie, Caramelized Peach Tart with Brown Sugar Crumble, Banana Caramel Tarts with Rum Pastry Cream, Sunny Side Up Apricot Pastries, Coconut Cream Pie with a Difference, and The Fruit Basket Cake.
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Why Make Pastry Cream
All pastry cream is not created equal. Some pastry creams will not survive freezing. This one will. Some have a starchy, off putting taste, this one doesn’t. Some are soft to the point they won’t hold a ridge when piped, this one will. Some pastry creams will not hold up at room temperature, this one will. I wanted to come up with a pastry cream that did everything I said and this one will.
Bo Friberg, the noted PastryChef/Instructor describes pastry cream in his book, The Professional Pastry Chef, as: “Making pastry cream is one of the basic techniques that anyone involved with cooking (pastry shop or otherwise) should master, because pastry cream has so many applications. In an emergency, it can be thinned and used as a sauce; it is a base for soufflé, it is filling and flavoring for cakes; and it can be used as a topping for Danish or other pastries. In the pastry kitchen, there should always be a supply of pastry cream in the refrigerator.”
Can it Freeze? Mine Can!
It depends upon the recipe. Most recipes specify cornstarch instead of the original thickener, flour, citing a pasty, floury after taste with which I agreed. However, cornstarch breaks down if frozen and thawed. So the answer is no if you’re using cornstarch as your starch.
Because we froze many of the items we sold wholesale to restaurants, hotels and caterers, we needed to find an answer to this problem. What I ended up doing was cutting the flour way back and using gelatin to complete the thickening. As a result, this pastry cream freezes and thaws beautifully taking all the last minute work out of it and allowing us to sell desserts with pastry cream as a component.
The gelatin serves two purposes. It held the pastry cream at room temperature plus when caterers and hotels plated desserts ahead of time it didn’t break down. So my recipe includes some flour and gelatin in proportions that make a smooth, rich pastry cream without a rubbery texture that either one alone can produce.
Basic Ingredients
The basic ingredients for my pastry cream recipe include egg yolks, sugar, milk (whole or 2%), flour, gelatin and vanilla. Other flavors may be substituted. That’s it for mine. I have seen recipes that add a bit of butter although it is not one of the original ingredients and I don’t.
What Cooking Pot to Use
It is important to make pastry cream in any pot other than aluminum or cast iron which can discolor the final result producing a grayish pastry cream that is not very appealing.
Storing
After the pastry cream is made it should be covered directly which simply means placing plastic wrap on top of the pastry cream so it doesn’t form a skin. Poke a few holes in it. Cool to room temperature and then chill or freeze it. It will last about 5 days in the refrigerator or it will freeze for months if put in a freezer proof container. Thaw in the refrigerator to use.
Flavors of Pastry Cream
Pastry Cream can be flavored many different ways including melted white, milk or dark chocolate, coffee, with liqueurs, citrus zest or any extracts, although vanilla remains the most common. soufflé This is one place I recommend using really good vanilla. If you want to flavor yours like professionals, use tahitian vanilla with its light, floral essence.
Why You Should Make This Pastry Cream
- The most important difference is that this pastry cream can be frozen and thawed without harm to the product.
- The recipe can be increased in direct proportion which means just multiply the ingredients – no changes are necessary.
- Super easy is an understatement. Just follow the pictures and the instructions and you’ll be an expert in no time.
- This is so much better than taking a shortcut and using a mix.
- It takes less than 30 minutes.
Variations
- Lemon, Lime or Orange – Peel the rind of a lemon or orange, cut it into large pieces and place it in a pan with the milk. Bring it to a simmer, turn off the heat and bring it to room temperature. Remove the rind and use the milk which is now flavored. For extra flavor, refrigerate the milk and rind overnight. This will give a lot of flavor without making bumps in your pastry cream as adding the grated zest of the fruit.
- Coffee – Add a tablespoon of instant coffee or a couple of teaspoons of expresso to the milk when heating it.
- Cinnamon – Either steep several cinnamon sticks in the hot milk or add a teaspoon of ground cinnamon to the pastry cream when making it.
- Liqueur – Omit the vanilla and add 2 tablespoons of any liqueur to the finished pastry cream.
- Extracts – Whisk in ½ to 1 teaspoon of any extract into the hot, finished pastry cream. Taste and add more to taste. Remember it will not taste as strong when cold.
- Chocolate – Add 3 ounces of white, dark or milk chocolate.
- Crème Légère or Lightened Pastry Cream is pastry cream that has whipped cream added to it. While the traditional proportions are 2 parts pastry cream to 1 part whipping cream, less whipped cream is often used.
- Diplomat Cream is a mix of pastry cream and whipped cream that has been stabalized with gelatin. It’s lighter than pastry cream, and richer than whipped cream. Since my pastry cream already has gelatin in it, adding whipped cream to it makes it Diplomat Cream.
Recipe Ingredients
Basic Pastry Cream
Ingredients for the Basic Pastry Cream include: Egg yolks, granulated sugar, milk, water, vanilla, all-purpose flour and gelatin.
Lightened Pastry Cream
The ingredients are: Pastry Cream and heavy cream
Be sure to see the recipe card below for the full ingredients& instructions.
Recipe FAQS
Absolutely not. It is simply egg yolks and sugar mixed together, milk is added along with flour or cornstarch and it is heated until it thickens. Vanilla or other flavoring is added, then chilled.
Stiffly whipped cream is added to lighten the pastry cream and add another dimension to it.
Pastry cream is actually a thick custard that is made on the stove top. It’s versatility as to flavoring and uses is many fold including cream puffs, eclairs, St.Honore, cakes, tarts, and just about anything that needs a smooth, luscious filling.
Expert Tips
- It is most important to mix sugar and egg yolks together immediately or they can clump together and become small hard blobs. This happens because sugar is hygroscopic, and as such, it attracts the water from the egg yolks and makes it gelatinize. Once this happens the mixture cannot be reversed and the only option is to throw them away and start over.
- Pastry cream needs to be made in any pot that is not aluminum or cast iron unless it is coated.
- Using flour and gelatin as the thickening agents in pastry cream allows the cream to be frozen.
- In the olden days, pastry cream would be made and then it would be shoved through a chinois or strainer. This is actually backwards. Strain it before it is cooked to make your life easier.
A Few Other Pastry Cream Desserts
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Pastry Cream
Instructions
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Soften the gelatin in the water and set aside.
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If using the vanilla bean, scrape out the seeds and add to the milk along with the pod; heat the milk until hot but not boiling.
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Whisk the egg yolks and sugar together in a non-reactive saucepan. Whisk in the flour. Remove the pod from the milk. Add the milk slowly, whisking well and scraping the corners of the pan with a rubber spatula to make sure all of the egg yolk mixture is incorporated.
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Place over medium heat and, stirring constantly, bring to a boil. Boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat and add the vanilla (if using extract). Tear the dissolved gelatin into small pieces and stir it into the hot liquid (there is no need to liquefy it, the heat of the mixture will do this for you).
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Pour into a storage container, cover the surface with plastic wrap, poke a few holes in it and refrigerate overnight to chill or freeze.
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Yield: about 2 cups (490 grams)
Notes
As always, I recommend using a scale for accuracy and consistency. Flour, in particular, is difficult to measure by volume. For my recipes, I use 140 grams per cup of unsifted all-purpose, bread or whole wheat flour and 125 grams of cake flour. Others may use different weights so use whatever they suggest.
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It is most important to mix sugar and egg yolks together immediately or they can clump together and become small hard blobs. This happens because sugar is hygroscopic, and as such, it attracts the water from the egg yolks and makes it gelatinize. Once this happens the mixture cannot be reversed and the only option is to throw them away and start over.
Pastry cream needs to be made in any pot that is not aluminum or cast iron until it is coated.
Using flour and gelatin as the thickening agents in pastry cream allows the cream to be frozen.
In the olden days, pastry cream would be made and then it would be shoved through a chinois or strainer. This is actually backwards. Strain it before it is cooked to make your life easier.
Variations
Lemon, Lime or Orange – Peel the rind of a lemon or orange, cut it into large pieces and place it in a pan with the milk. Bring it to a simmer, turn off the heat and bring it to room temperature. Remove the rind and use the milk which is now flavored. For extra flavor, refrigerate the milk and rind overnight. This will give a lot of flavor without making bumps in your pastry cream as adding the grated zest of the fruit.
Coffee – Add a tablespoon of instant coffee or a couple of teaspoons of expresso to the milk when heating it.
Cinnamon – Either steep several cinnamon sticks in the hot milk or add a teaspoon of ground cinnamon to the pastry cream when making it.
Liqueur – Omit the vanilla and add 2 tablespoons of any liqueur to the finished pastry cream.
Extracts – Whisk in ½ to 1 teaspoon of any extract into the hot, finished pastry cream. Taste and add more to taste. Remember it will not taste as strong when cold.
Chocolate – Add 3 ounces of white, dark or milk chocolate.
Crème Légère or Lightened Pastry Cream is pastry cream that has whipped cream added to it. While the traditional proportions are 2 parts pastry cream to 1 part whipping cream, less whipped cream is often used.
Diplomat Cream is a mix of pastry cream and whipped cream that has been stabalized with gelatin. It’s lighter than pastry cream, and richer than whipped cream. Since my pastry cream already has gelatin in it, adding whipped cream to it makes it Diplomat Cream.
Nutrition
Calories: 681kcalCarbohydrates: 73gProtein: 17gFat: 37gSaturated Fat: 20gPolyunsaturated Fat: 3gMonounsaturated Fat: 11gCholesterol: 476mgSodium: 102mgPotassium: 361mgFiber: 0.4gSugar: 60gVitamin A: 1657IUVitamin C: 0.4mgCalcium: 291mgIron: 2mg
