Vanilla Pastry Cream
Pastry cream in the right small quantity: the recipe scaled down, for when you need a little and do not want to throw half of it away.
Two moves decide everything. The starch is stirred in cold — onto hot milk it seizes into lumps instantly and there is no fixing it after that. And in the microwave you stop every minute to whisk: otherwise the cream sets against the edge while the middle is still liquid.
The citrus version is the orange pastry cream.
Ingredients
- 1 egg yolk
- 85 ml milk
- 20 g sugar
- 8 g cornstarch (cornflour)
- 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
- 40 g chocolate (optional)
Method
- 1
Mix the yolk, the sugar and the cornstarch together cold. Add the milk a little at a time, working it in well until there are no lumps left.
- 2
Microwave in 1-minute bursts at medium-high power, whisking hard between each one, until it thickens (2 to 3 minutes in total).
- 3
Out of the microwave, stir in the vanilla extract: added any earlier, the heat carries off much of its aroma. If you are using chocolate, add it at the same moment and stir until it melts. Cover the cream with cling film pressed onto the surface, so it does not form a skin.