How to Make Pastry Cream

1. How to Make Pastry
Cream
Prepared by: Maria Merllan Estrellante Mier

2. Pastry Cream
•made by heating milk, sugar, eggs, starch, and a
flavoring together—is a rich, thick, and creamy
custard that's a versatile workhorse in the
baker’s kitchen. It's piped into cream puffs and
éclairs, spread between the layers of a Boston
cream pie, and used as the base filling in fruit
tarts.

3. •Pastry cream, also called crème pâtissière, is a
versatile component in a baker’s toolbox.
Cooked on the stovetop, it's a custard akin to
pudding, with a rich taste and a creamy
texture that thick enough to hold its shape.
Classically flavored with vanilla or chocolate,
it’s often piped into éclairs or cream puffs,
and spooned into pâte sucrée as the base for
fruit tarts.

4. It’s simple enough to make
combine milk, sugar, eggs, starch, and a
flavoring, then heat them together to
harness the thickening power of eggs and
starch. However, if made incorrectly, it can
become too stiff, too runny, or maybe even
too bland

5. What Is Pastry Cream?
•The universe of custards is large and varied. There are
pourable custards like crème anglaise, which
essentially function as a sauce for desserts and rely
solely on the thickening power of eggs; there are
baked custards like flan, which also use eggs as their
thickener, but in a high enough proportion that they
set more solidly; and there are stiff custards like
pastry cream, which combine the thickening powers
of eggs and starch to create a substance that can be
piped or spread and will retain its shape.

6. •At its most basic, pastry cream is a combination of
milk, eggs, and starch that are cooked together to
create a rich and thick custard that's a workhorse
in the baker’s kitchen. One batch of chilled pastry
cream has many uses, It can be piped into cream
puffs and éclairs, spread on layers of puff pastry
for a mille-feuille, or used as the filling in fruit
tarts, cakes, and even donuts.

7. •Furthermore, it serves as the base of several
more advanced creams: lightening it with
whipped cream makes crème légère, combining
it with meringue yields crème chiboust, and
mixing it with whipped butter results in crème
mousseline.

8. Applying Heat: The Critical Steps for
Thickening Pastry Cream
•The success or failure of pastry cream
hinges on sufficiently heating the custard base.
The goal is to properly thicken the custard to
achieve a consistency that is stiff, thick, and
smooth, while remaining easy to pipe or spread. If
the resulting pastry cream is too runny and loose,
or overcooked and gritty, then we either fell short
or overshot this essential step in the process.

9. •Pastry cream relies on two thickeners—the
starch and the eggs—working in tandem to
thicken the custard. The steady application
of heat serves as the catalyst for the
processes of gelatinization for the starch
and coagulation for the eggs.

10. •When mixed with water and heated to around
175°F, starch granules gelatinize, meaning they
absorb and swell up with water, then leak out
their starchy molecules, effectively thickening
the custard base. While all of this is happening,
the proteins in the yolks are denaturing,
unfolding, and then coagulating, or bonding
together, to form a strong, flexible network.

11. •If gelatinization and coagulation were our only concerns,
we could bring the pastry cream to 175°F and be done.
Unfortunately, the yolks contain an enzyme called
amylase, which can slowly break down the starch
molecules and transform thick pastry cream into a runny
sauce. The solution to this problem requires getting the
pastry cream even hotter—to what we might describe as
a "bubble," with the mixture at a temperature just shy of
boiling. Holding the pastry cream at a bubble while
whisking constantly for about a minute or so deactivates
the amylase so that it's no longer a threat to the
structure of the pastry cream.

12. •Getting the egg-containing custard so hot may
sound like we'd risk immediately scrambling the
eggs, but several factors are on our side to prevent
that from happening. First, the milk dilutes the egg
proteins, so they're farther apart and less likely to
rapidly and tightly bond. On top of that, both the
starch and the sugar run additional interference to
prevent the egg proteins from bonding. This means
you can safely bring the pastry cream to a near boil
while whisking for at least a minute without it
overcooking.

13. •And that brings into one more very important
point. If you’re a multitasker in the kitchen, it’s best
to set other tasks aside and focus all of your
attention on the pastry cream. Don’t walk away or
check your phone, and be sure to whisk, whisk,
whisk. Whisking ensures that the pastry cream is
evenly thickened and reduces the chance for lumps
and scorched spots to develop.

14. Tempering
•When making the custard
base, almost all pastry cream recipes reflexively
call for tempering, which involves whisking hot
milk into eggs to reduce the chances of ending up
with scrambled eggs (keep in mind that this
happens before the pastry cream is cooked to
thicken it).

15. •But you don't always need to temper when
making pastry cream. It's only necessary if the
milk needs to be heated first. For example, if you
want to flavor the pastry cream by infusing the
milk with something like the vanilla bean in this
recipe, or the lemon zest in my lemon pastry
cream, then tempering is necessary because the
milk will have been heated during the infusion
step.

16. •However, if there’s no reason to preheat the milk, it’s
perfectly okay to simply combine all of the pastry
cream's ingredients while cold and heat them up
together. For instance, in my chocolate pastry cream
recipe, the pastry cream base is made without a
tempering step, and then the chocolate is melted
into the thickened custard while it’s still warm.

17. How to Add Flavor to
Pastry Cream

18. •Milk Infusions: To extract maximum flavor from
dry and vegetal ingredients like spices, teas,
herbs, coffee, ginger, and zests. Combine the milk
and flavoring ingredient in a pot, bring the
mixture to a bare simmer, then let it steep,
covered, for as little as a few minutes and up to 1
hour, depending on the ingredient. You can then
strain out larger ingredients as needed or in the
case of finely grated citrus zest or vanilla seeds.

19. •If the milk is still hot when the infusion is
complete, you will need to temper the eggs with
it to prevent scrambling, depending on the
duration of the infusion, the milk will cool to
varying degrees, so the key is to always temper if
you have any concern it might still be too hot.

20. •Wet Stir-Ins: Honey, maple syrup, pomegranate
molasses, citrus juice, jam, and flavored oils like
sesame and olive oil, are all fantastic options. To
account for the extra liquid, you will often need
to slightly increase the amount of cornstarch and
egg yolks in order to achieve a final consistency
that's thick enough. In most cases, wet stir-ins
should be whisked in only after the finished
pastry cream has chilled, since many can
interfere with it setting properly if added earlier.

21. •Dry Stir-Ins: You can approach this category in
one of two ways, either initially combining the
stir-in with the rest of your dry ingredients or
whisking it in off-heat once the pastry cream has
properly thickened. The former works well for
ground spices and cocoa powder, while the latter
is ideal for chopped chocolate, which will melt in
the hot pastry cream.

22. •Pastes: Once the pastry cream has been
removed from the heat, you can stir in pastes,
such as peanut butter, pistachio paste, Nutella,
and tahini paste. Keep in mind that adding any
unsweetened paste, even in small quantities, will
reduce the overall sweetness of the cream; you’ll
need to compensate for this by increasing the
amount of sugar. In addition, there's no need to
worry if you are stirring in a particularly thick
paste; it will easily dissolve into the hot pastry
cream.

23. •Once you’ve become confident with adding
individual flavorings, it’s fun to experiment by
building more complex flavor combinations. For
instance, pairing chocolate and mint in a pastry
cream can be easily accomplished by steeping
fresh mint in milk, and whisking in chocolate off-
heat.

24. Recipe Facts
Prep: 45 mins
Cook: 20 mins
Active: 20 mins
Chilling Time: 2 hrs 30 mins
Total: 3 hrs 35 mins
Serves: 18 to 20 portions
Makes: 2 ½ cups

25. Ingredients
2 cups (455g) whole milk
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
4 ounces granulated sugar (½ cup; 115g), plain or toasted
1 ounce (3 tablespoons; 30g) cornstarch
¼ teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt; for table salt, use half as
much by volume
Yolks from 4 large eggs, straight from the fridge (2 ½ ounces; 70g)
1-ounce unsalted butter (2 tablespoons; 30g), cut into ½ inch
cubes

26. Directions
•In a 2-quart stainless steel saucier, combine milk and
scraped vanilla bean along with its seeds. Bring to a
bare simmer over medium heat. Remove from heat,
cover to prevent evaporation, and let steep for 30
minutes.

27. •In a large bowl, set up an
ice bath by partially filling
it with a combination of
cold water and ice. Set
aside.

28. •In a medium heatproof mixing bowl set on top of
a dampened towel (this serves as a stable base),
stir together sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Whisk in
egg yolks until mixture is pale yellow, smooth,
and fluffy, about 1 minute.

29. •Uncover infused milk and remove the vanilla
bean. While whisking continuously, slowly pour
milk into the egg yolk mixture in a thin stream,
until all of it has been added.

30. •Return the mixture to the same saucier. Cook
over medium heat, whisking constantly until
pastry cream begins to thicken, about 5 minutes.
Once it thickens, continue to whisk, pausing
every few seconds to check for bubbles, about 1
minute. When it begins to bubble, set a timer
and continue whisking for 1 minute.
•This step is important to neutralize
a starch-dissolving protein found in
egg yolks.

31. •Off-heat, whisk in butter until melted and
thoroughly combined. Strain pastry cream
through a fine-mesh sieve set over a heatproof
medium bowl. Immediately place plastic wrap or
buttered parchment paper directly on the
surface of the cream to prevent a skin from
forming. Transfer bowl to
prepared ice bath to chill for
30 minutes, then refrigerate until
cold, about 2 hours.

32. •When ready to use the pastry
cream, whisk until smooth.

33. Special Equipment
•2-quart stainless steel saucier, balloon whisk, fine-
mesh strainer
Notes
•I prefer Tahitian vanilla beans for their light, fruity-
floral flavor, but you can use any variety of vanilla
beans. Plus, you can reserve the used vanilla bean for
other applications.

34. Make-Ahead and Storage
•Pastry cream can be stored in an airtight
container, with plastic wrap or buttered
parchment paper placed directly on the
surface, and refrigerated for up to 3
days.

35.  THANK YOU 
ma’am Lyn