Pastry Cream (Crema Pasticcera)
This is a simple, traditional preparation for pastry cream, a thick Italian custard, which is used to fill pastries such as bomboloncini, cornetti and sfogliatine and to fill cakes such as schiacciata alla fiorentina or torta della nonna. Depending on what you are using this pastry cream for, you may like to add some subtle flavour with lemon zest or vanilla.
Makes about 680 g (1 1/2 lb) pastry cream.
This recipe can easily be halved if you don’t need the amount that it makes here.
Ingredients 7
4 egg yolks
120 g sugar
30 g cornflour, (corn starch)
500 ml milk, warmed
Optional
1 lemon, zested, optional
1 tsp natural vanilla extract, optional
1⁄2 vanilla pod, split open and seeds scraped, optional
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Method 4
Whisk the and together in a mixing bowl until pale. Stir in the .
Put the mixture in a saucepan over a low heat and add the warm , little by little, stirring between each addition. Add the lemon zest or vanilla essence or seeds, if using. Stir continuously with a whisk or a wooden spoon until the mixture becomes smooth and thick, about 10 minutes. You are looking for a consistency similar to mayonnaise (when cool it will also firm up further). Do not let it boil – remove from the heat at the very first sign of a bubble.
Remove the pastry cream from the heat. Prepare an ice bath and cool the pastry cream quickly by transferring to a mixing bowl set over the ice water.
Cover with plastic wrap making sure that the plastic is touching the surface of the pastry cream, so it doesn’t develop a skin. Keep in the refrigerator until needed.
