Pastry Cream/ Basic Crème Pâtissière

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Pastry cream aka custard cream or crème pâtissière(French) is one of my favorite creams and is a really basic cream for french pastry.  I’ve made them a million times over my career and learned different pastry cream recipes from different chefs. This recipe is the most basic pastry cream recipe, rich, thick, and eggy. So delicious and can be used for so many pastries.

What is Pastry Cream?

Pastry cream is the English name of french cream called crème patissière. It is cooked on the stove, made out of egg yolks, milk, sugar, and flour (and starch). Commonly used as a filling in a variety of pastries.

Ingredients for Pastry Cream

• Milk: Whole milk is always the best option for rich flavored cream. I do not recommend reduced fat milk or skimmed milk
  
• Egg Yolks: Some recipes are mixed up with whole eggs. In this recipe, I only use egg yolks. I prefer to have a thick yolky and rich cream
  
• Sugar: Granulated white sugar or caster sugar. Not recommended is brown sugar or other non-refined sugar. But if you don’t mind for the cream to turn brown color, you can use brown sugar
  
• Starch: In this recipe, I mix flour and corn starch as starch agents. Some recipes only use flour or only corn starch. When I have custard powder ableable which is called poudre à crème in french, I switch it instead of using cornstarch. Custard powder provides a more smooth texture for cream
  
• Vanilla: Using vanilla beans is the best aroma-wise. However, vanilla paste or vanilla extract has 35% of alcohol by law, so the cream will last slightly longer than without using them
  

Other additional ingredient options

• Butter: can be added to make the cream smoother. However, the timing is very important when adding butter into the cream, so I didn’t use butter for this basic pastry cream recipe
  
• Heavy cream: can be mixed with milk in order to make milker creamer. However, I don’t use it for this recipe because I want my pastry cream simple and basic. I oftern make other cream such as diplomat cream which is made out of pastry cream and whipped cream
  
• Gelatin: sometimes added in order to keep the cream settled. Especially used in stores in take out purposes

Tips and Common Mistakes

–Continuously whisk well:

It is really physical work to cook the cream because you have to whisk the mixture continually and vigorously over the heat. However, this is the most important part of the process. Don’t forget to whisk all the way to the bottom of the pan and around the edges.  Many beginners end up having a lump in the cream because of not continuously mixing or forgetting to whisk the edges of the pan.  

–Cook cream in medium heat:

In the professional kitchen, many chefs cook the cream in medium-high heat. Because it cooks faster and creates less gluten from the flour which provides it a slightly better texture. However, higher heat is more likely to get lumps in the cream unless you whisk so quickly all over the mixture. So for the beginner, cooking the cream in medium heat or low medium heat might be best. 

–Do not stop cooking when the cream starts thickening:

Beginners commonly stop cooking when the liquid mixture of the cream starts to get creamy and thicker. However, at this point, egg yolks are cooked but starch is not cooked yet. So you have to keep cooking until starch is completely cooked. The sign of cooked starch is normally when the mixture turns glossy and starts bubbling. Also, the mixture will be a little bit loosened up.

–Whisk right away when you add sugar to egg yolk:

If you leave eggs and sugar together without mixing, the sugar will start curing the yolk. This means your egg yolk will have small lumps that won’t dissolve afterward. Please whisk immediately after you add the sugar into the egg yolk, or never scale them together.

–Do not whisk too much after you add flour:

You have to whisk enough egg yolks and sugar, but after you add flour, only whisk them until incorporated. Whisking too much with flour will create a lot of gluten, which will make bad texture cream.

Do Not Worry

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• In case if you get tiny scrambled eggs in your cream, just get rid of them using a fine-mesh strainer. It is easier to strain when the cream is still hot
  
• Pastry cream will get harder when it completely cools down. This is actually a good sign that your cream is cooked well. Before you use cream, loosen it up with a spatula or beat it in the stand mixer
  
• If the starch agent of your cream is not cooked enough, the cream will soften and have a taste of unpleasant raw flavor from the flour

How to Store Pastry Cream?

Pastry cream should be kept in the refrigerator with an airtight container. It normally lasts 3 days, but I sometimes add a bit of liquor such as Grand Marnier or Cointreau. Add them when loosening the cream up after cool down. This way your cream will last 1 or 2 days more. If you use pure vanilla extract or vanilla paste, it normally contains 35% alcohol, so the cream will last longer than using only vanilla beans.

Can I freeze the pastry cream?

The texture and consistency of pastry cream will change if you freeze the cream. So I do not recommend keeping them in the freezer. However, diplomat cream won’t change the cream texture that much, so I make diplomat cream if I have leftover pastry cream and freeze it.