How To Make Pastry Cream

As a professional baker turned recipe developer, I’ve made many batches of pastry cream — one of the most important (and versatile) components in a baker’s kitchen. While this rich and creamy custard can be eaten by itself with a spoon, pastry cream is typically used as a filling in a wide array of desserts. Here, I’ll walk you through how to make your own batch of pastry cream at home with ease. 

Pastry cream is a thick and creamy custard that comes together on the stovetop. It’s typically made by whisking warmed milk into a mixture containing egg yolks, sugar, salt, and a starch like flour or cornstarch, and cooking it on the stove until thickened. 

Traditionally flavored with vanilla or chocolate, pastry cream has many uses. It can be piped into cream puffs and éclairs, or used as a filling in donuts (hello, Boston cream donuts!), tarts, and cakes (like Boston cream pie). You can even use pastry cream as a base for other spin-off fillings, such as crème légère, which is made by combining it with fluffy whipped cream, or crème mousseline, an ultra-rich frosting made from whipping softened butter with pastry cream. 

• Whisk all of the ingredients together in a pot. Most recipes for pastry cream call for slowly whisking hot milk into an egg-sugar mixture to prevent curdling, which is a process known as tempering. Because this recipe doesn’t require you to infuse the milk first with vanilla to extract its flavor, you can simply whisk the eggs with the dry ingredients until a smooth paste forms, then add in the cold milk. 
• Cook the mixture on the stove. Set the pot over medium heat and whisk the mixture until it begins to thicken. As soon as it begins to bubble, whisk for a full minute, then remove from the heat. Add butter and vanilla, and whisk until smooth. 
• Strain and chill the pastry cream. To ensure that your pastry cream is silky-smooth, push it through a fine-mesh strainer into a bowl. Immediately press a sheet of plastic wrap directly onto its surface to prevent a skin from forming, and refrigerate until chilled. When it’s ready to use, whisk until smooth. 

• Play around with adding flavors. The sky’s the limit when it comes to flavoring pastry cream. To do this, you can either infuse the ingredient of your choice with the milk first and let it cool completely (if you don’t want to wait for it to cool, you can temper the milk into the egg mixture), or whisk it in off-heat into the thickened pastry cream. Spices, teas, coffee, chopped chocolate, peanut butter, Nutella, citrus zest and juice, and herbs are all great options.  
• Don’t stop whisking when it’s on the stove. While it may be tempting to pause every now and then, continuous whisking will prevent a pastry cream that’s lumpy or unevenly cooked on the bottom.