Basic Pastry Cream with 5 egg yolks
Originally from Shirley Corriher, this is a rich and smooth pastry cream made with 5 egg yolks.
Servings 2 cups
Cost 5
Ingredients
- 5 large egg yolks (72 grams)
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar (70 grams)
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- 3 tablespoons cornstarch (24 grams)
- 1 whole vanilla bean (or skip and use paste
- 1 cup whole milk
- ½ cup heavy or whipping cream (use a good brand)
- 2 or 3 tablespoons unsalted butter (28 to 42 grams)
Instructions
- Whisk the egg yolks together in a medium size bowl and set next to the stove.
- In a medium size saucepan, off the heat, stir together the sugar, salt and the cornstarch. Set it aside too.
- If using the vanilla bean, pry it open with the tip of a knife and scrape its insides into a second medium saucepan. Add the vanilla bean pod and the milk and cream and heat over medium until mixture starts to steam.
- Remove the vanilla bean pod from the hot milk and drizzle the hot milk into the sugar mixture. Set the sugar mixture over medium heat and whisk until smooth. It will start to thicken just a little from the cornstarch at this point, but won't be fully thickened because you have to add those yolks.
- Remove the hot milk mixture from the heat and stir about ¼ cup of the hot milk mixture into the yolks, then scrape the yolk mixture into the saucepan. Return to heat and bring to a gentle boil, stirring constantly until the custard becomes thick and smooth.
- Transfer the pastry cream to a clean container. Press a piece of plastic wrap to the surface and chill until cold.
- If you skipped using the vanilla bean, go ahead and add a teaspoon of vanilla paste or vanilla.
Notes
I use a 3 quart All-Clad without any coating on it since this requires lots of vigorous whisking and you don't want flecks of coating in your cream.
