Pastry Foundations · Dessert
Creme Patissiere, the Boiled Starch Custard
- Intermediate
- 20 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, a floral thread lifting the aroma, on a slow, honest burn.
Ingredients
- 500 g whole milk
- 1 vanilla pod, split and scraped
- 110 g egg yolk (about 6)
- 100 g caster sugar
- 40 g cornflour (8 percent of the milk)
- 50 g unsalted butter, cold and cubed
Equipment
Sheet pan
The skills inside
Allergen screen
Found: dairy · egg
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Heat the milk with the vanilla to 80C (176F) and infuse off the heat for 20 minutes, then bring it back to the boil. 20 min
- Whisk yolks, sugar and cornflour to a smooth pale paste, then temper with a third of the hot milk, whisking without stopping.
- Return everything to the pan over medium heat and whisk hard through the thickening, keeping the whisk moving into the corners.
- Once it thickens, hold it at a full boil for a further 60 seconds, until large slow bubbles break the surface and the cream slackens slightly and turns glossy.
- Off the heat beat in the cold butter, spread on to a cold tray, film flat against the surface and chill to 4C (39F) within 90 minutes. 90 min
- Whisk it smooth before use; the chilled gel breaks back to a pipeable cream.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Tempering a custard 59 recipes
- The hot liquid went into the eggs a little at a time with constant whisking, and only then did everything go back to the pot.
- The heat under it stayed gentle throughout and it was never allowed to boil.
- Stirred continuously and right into the corners of the pan, where it thickens first and sets unnoticed.
- Judged by behaviour: it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon and hold a clean line when a finger is drawn through it.
- Taken off before it looks finished, and strained. Residual heat carries it the rest of the way, and a custard held on the heat until it looks right arrives past right.
Where it goes wrong The hot liquid went in too fast, or the pot went back over full heat to save time. The yolks set into threads before they could thicken smoothly, and a scrambled custard does not come back; straining hides a little of it and nothing hides the rest.
At the Table
- The Pour
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The sweetness rule is absolute: the pour must be sweeter than the plate, and acid keeps it from cloying.
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