Custard - Pastry cream - Cake cream
A trifle of custard © kvalifood.com
Video Recipe - Pastry cream , or cake cream, is one of the most flexible basic recipes. But it really is just a custard with a little wheat- or corn-flour in it, but hey, that it is super nice too :-D
Ingredients
- 2 cups (½ liter) cream
- 3 eggs
- 5 oz (150 grams) of sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla sugar or the seeds of 1 vanilla pod.
- 2 tbsp corn starch or white flour (not corn flour as I say in the video)
Directions
Pour the dry ingredients into a saucepan.
Pour in a little cream and stir until all the lumps in the corn starch has gone away.
Pour in the rest of the cream and the eggs.
Heat it gently and keep stirring until it is creamy. When it boils very gently it is done. If you see just a few bubbles that is enough.
Notes
If you are not used to make your own pastry cream, you are probably just buying a package at the grocery. It is called pastry cream, but the taste is in no way comparable.
In contrast to normal custard it is not that sensitive to heat. Which is why it is suitable for baking. The corn starch fortifies the egg so that it does not lump at high temperatures.
Variation
This cream can be used directly as it is anywhere that requires pastry cream. But if you have a recipe where you don’t bake the cream in the cake, it’s often a good idea to take a portion of this cake cream and mix with whipped cream made from 2 cups (½ liter) of cream. It is less sweet and much lighter.
That variation is especially good for fruit salads, trifles, layer cakes, as a filling for cream puffs, etc.
If you are using homemade vanilla sugar, then your cream can get a little green/brownish, because the vanilla pods give of a bit of color. The taste is still as good though.