Making your own pastry cream is easy. Use it for anything from filing for cakes to baked in pastries. Use leftover pastry cream heated on top of cakes and crumbles, too.The difference between custard and pastry cream is the amount of starch used (pastry cream is quite a lot thicker). Also, custard if often served runnier and warm, where as pastry cream is usually cold (but can be both). You can thin out pastry cream and heat if you want to use it on crumbles and other desserts.
Course: Baking
Cuisine: Scandinavian
Servings: 600g
Author: Bronte Aurell
Ingredients
500mlwhole milk
1vanilla pod/beanseeds scraped out
1eggplus 1 egg yolk
100gcaster sugar
30gcornflour
a pinch of salt
25gbutter
Instructions
In a saucepan, heat the milk with the scraped out seeds from the vanilla pod/bean. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar and add the cornflour. Whisk until well combined.
When the milk has just reached boiling point, take off the heat and pour one third into the egg mixture, whisking continuously. Once whisked through, pour the egg mixture back into the remaining hot milk. Return to the stove and bring to the boiling point, carefully. Whisk continuously as the mixture thickens, for just under a minute (this will remove the corn flour taste as well as thicken it), then remove from the heat and stir in the salt and butter.
Pour into a cold bowl and place a sheet of baking parchment on top to prevent the cream from forming a crust as it cools. Refrigerate before using. The mixture will keep well in the refrigerator for a few days.