No. 46

Pastry Cream with Vanilla

Creme Patissiere a la Vanille

Place ten egg-yolks in a tinned basin, adding half a pound of sugar and an ounce of fecula or corn starch; mix the ingredients well together and dilute with a quart of boiling milk, having had half a vanilla stick infused therein. Stand it on the fire and stir continually until it thickens and is ready to boil, then pour into a vessel to use when needed.

← No. 45 Mocha Cream Elementary Methods No. 47 Pistachio or Hazel-Nut Cream →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's pastry cream is looser than the modern version — a quart of milk carrying only an ounce of starch — so it sets as a pourable custard rather than a pipeable filling. The one thing to change is the finish: take it to a full boil.

The hinge: cook it further than told"Ready to boil" leaves both the starch and the yolks underdone. Bring it to an actual boil and hold it 60–90 seconds, whisking hard; this gelatinizes the cornstarch and destroys the yolk enzyme (alpha-amylase) that will otherwise thin the cream to soup after a few hours in the refrigerator.
FeculaNineteenth-century French usage for a fine starch, typically potato. Ranhofer offers cornstarch as the equivalent and it works; 1 oz is about 3 1/2 tablespoons.
MeasuresHalf a pound of sugar is a generous cup (about 1 1/8 cups). A quart is 4 cups of milk — whole milk, not skim. Ten yolks from modern large eggs run about 6 1/2 fl oz.
Tinned basinA tin-lined metal basin, most likely copper; the lining kept the egg mixture off bare metal that would discolor it. Any heavy nonreactive saucepan does the job; a wide pan is easier to whisk into the corners.
Vanilla stickHalf a vanilla bean, split lengthwise and the seeds scraped into the milk, then steeped off the heat 15-20 minutes before the milk is reheated to boiling. A teaspoon or two of extract stirred in at the end is the usual substitute, though it lacks the specks.
Adding the milkBoiling milk poured onto ten yolks all at once can curdle them. Whisk the yolks, sugar and starch to a smooth paste first, then add the milk in a thin stream while whisking.
Straining and coolingPass it through a fine sieve into a shallow pan, press plastic wrap directly on the surface to stop a skin forming, and chill quickly. Use within three days.
YieldAbout 5 cups — enough to fill two large tarts, or a substantial batch of éclairs. For a stiffer filling, doubling the starch gives a cream that holds its shape when piped.

A Little History

Creme patissiere — literally pastry-maker's cream — is the base custard of the French pastry shop, and its place in the "Elementary Methods" chapter of Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) says exactly what it is: not a dish but a component, numbered alongside mocha, pistachio and hazelnut versions so that the later recipes for tarts, eclairs and charlottes can simply refer back to it. Ranhofer was chef at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and his book was written for cooks who would be sent to No. 46 rather than told twice. The starch is what distinguishes this from a plain custard sauce: it lets the cream be boiled without scrambling and gives a body that holds up inside baked pastry. In the 1890s the bean was an expensive import and half a stick to a quart of milk was a measured hand.