No. 42

English Cream with Vanilla, Lemon or Orange Zest

Creme Anglaise a la Vanille ou aux Zestes de Citron ou d'Orange

Beat in a saucepan half a pound of sugar with ten raw egg-yolks; mingle both well together and dilute with a quart of boiling milk, having had half a vanilla stick broken in pieces infused therein. Cook the cream on a moderate fire, stirring with a spoon or whisk and thicken without boiling; strain this through a fine sieve into a vessel and let cool, stirring it occasionally until this occurs. This cream can be flavored with lemon or orange peel instead of vanilla.

← No. 41 English Cream with Coffee Elementary Methods No. 43 Frangipane Cream with Chocolate, or with Mar →

For the Modern Kitchen

A classic stirred custard, written for a cook who already knows what a thickened custard looks like on a spoon. The whole recipe hinges on heat control.

The hinge: never boilYolks begin to coagulate well below the boil, and a custard thickens at roughly 175-180F; much above 185F it curdles and turns grainy. Hold it at 170-180F, stirring constantly, until it coats the back of a spoon and a finger drawn through leaves a clean track. An instant-read thermometer removes most of the guesswork here.
Quantities in modern termsHalf a pound of sugar is about 1 1/8 cups granulated; a quart of milk is 4 cups. Ten yolks to a quart is a rich, old-style ratio — the result is closer to a pourable custard sauce than to a thin pouring cream.
"Moderate fire"On a modern burner that means low to medium-low. Many cooks prefer a double boiler for insurance, though direct heat in a heavy-bottomed pan is faster and is what Ranhofer intends.
VanillaHalf a vanilla bean, split and scraped, infused in the hot milk for 15-20 minutes off the heat gives more flavor than simply boiling it briefly. If substituting extract, add 1-2 teaspoons after the custard is off the heat, since alcohol-based flavor volatilizes.
Citrus versionFor the lemon or orange variant, use pared zest in wide strips with no pith -- roughly two lemons or one large orange -- infused in the milk and removed with the straining. Zest tends to give up its oils quickly, so a short infusion is usually enough.
TemperingThe instruction to dilute the yolk-sugar base with boiling milk works as written, but pour it in a thin stream while whisking hard, or add a cup first and then the rest. Adding a quart of boiling milk to ten yolks all at once risks curdling them.
Straining and coolingStrain while hot — this catches any set threads of egg and the spent vanilla. Cooling in a bowl set over ice, stirring, is faster than the original's occasional stir and prevents a skin forming. Refrigerate promptly and use within three days.
YieldA generous quart and a bit, enough sauce for 10-12 servings, or the base for ice cream if churned.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is the work of Charles Ranhofer, for over thirty years chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its "Elementary Methods" section is essentially a French kitchen's foundation course transcribed for an American readership — hence the doubled headings in French and English. The name is a small puzzle of culinary history: crème anglaise, "English cream," is the French term for a stirred egg-yolk custard sauce, generally taken to reflect the English fondness for pouring sweet custard over puddings and fruit, as against the French preference for baked or set creams. Ranhofer numbers it among a run of variations — coffee at No. 41, frangipane at No. 43 — because in a professional kitchen this single preparation was the parent of dozens of finished dishes: sauce for cold desserts, the base for ice cream once churning became routine, and the body of bavarois when gelatin and whipped cream were folded in.