The recipe for chocolate pastry cream, used in particular in chocolate eclairs or in religious pastries.
It's been about 1000 years that I wanted to detail the recipe for pastry cream for you. After all, it's both one of the simplest and most used cream recipes in pastry making. Indeed, you find it raw in eclairs, cooked for flans and as a base for other creams like mousseline cream.
Storage of pastry cream
It's not really complicated, you just have to pay attention to a few points. Already on the hygiene level, let's remember that pastry cream is quite sensitive and should be consumed within 24 hours to avoid poisoning. It must also be made with boiled milk, cooked for at least 1 minute and cooled quickly on a stainless steel sheet (or a glass dish if needed). Little tip, you can store your empty container in the freezer to speed up cooling.
Making chocolate pastry cream
For the process, it's pretty simple. Just put a liter of milk to boil in a thick-bottomed saucepan with a vanilla bean split in half and emptied of its pulp (which we put in the milk). Here, I chose to make a chocolate pastry cream but you can very well leave it plain (vanilla so) or flavor it with coffee (personally I hate that, but it's possible!).
1st step: mixing eggs and sugar
Meanwhile, quickly mix (in the robot bowl it's much more practical!), the eggs, sugar and cream powder. Cream powder is a preparation based on cornstarch and vanilla. It's starting to be found in supermarkets but you can replace it without any problem with plain cornstarch (or even flour). I use a recipe where the eggs are whole because I find it practical not to have to recycle the whites. But you can find recipes with only yolks.
2nd step: boiling the milk
When the milk boils, remove it from the heat and remove the pieces of vanilla bean. Pour the milk over the egg/sugar mixture while continuing to beat. Indeed, if you pour boiling milk directly over the eggs, they will cook and make lumps. When the mixture is well homogeneous we reheat it on low heat by gently beating with a whisk. This is when you can add the flavoring, for me cocoa paste.
Cooking the pastry cream
As it heats, the cream will thicken until it reaches the consistency of mayonnaise. When it starts to boil, wait a good minute (a matter of hygiene as I said) and boom, transfer it to our frozen container. Cover with plastic wrap in contact and off to the fridge for at least an hour. In the lab, you can put it in the freezer for 5 minutes (no more at risk of having a pastry brick, which would be a real shame).
The cream thus obtained will be able to serve you to fill profiteroles, eclairs, a mille-feuille... Or to make a mousseline cream or a diplomat cream.
And in case of leftovers don't hesitate to recycle it in flan, it's delicious!
Chocolate pastry cream
