If you’ve ever worked in a pastry kitchen you’re probably all too familiar with pastry cream. I’ve spent many hours over the years whisking a pot of pastry cream until it reaches the proper thickness. It makes a great filling for doughnuts, cakes, cream puffs, and tarts. Essentially, instant Jello pudding (vanilla flavor) is a cheater’s pastry cream. This is like that, but with a much better taste and ingredients you can pronounce.

Recipe Notes: as my chef would say, do not walk away from the pot. Nothing is worse than a burnt pastry cream, ew! The scorching can also happen in a split second, and once you’ve burnt some of it, it’s pretty hard to get the gross taste out. Trust me, I’ve done it so many times! If you need to stabilize your pastry cream, such as for creme diplomat, I will include a note on that towards the end of the recipe.

Pastry cream

2 cups whole milk
2/3 cup sugar, divided
1 egg
2 yolks
3 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons butter
Pinch salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or 1 scraped vanilla bean

For chocolate variation: add 3/4 cup chocolate chips after the pastry cream comes off the stove.

1. If using vanilla bean, scrape the pods and rub the beans into the sugar. Place roughly half of the sugar in a medium sized pot and pour in the whole milk. Place the rest of the sugar in a mixing bowl and whisk in the whole egg, yolks and cornstarch.

2. Heat the milk and sugar mixture over medium just until it almost boils. Using a ladle or something similar, spoon a scoop of the hot milk into the bowl of sugar, cornstarch, and eggs. Whisk immediately. Gradually whisk more milk (about 1/3 to 1/2 of what’s in the pot) in until the mixture is pourable and no lumps remain, then pour it back into the pot with the remaining milk. Bring the mixture to a full boil, whisking constantly. Lower to a simmer and cook for 5 to 7ish minutes, without stepping away, until the the custard is very thick and the whisk leaves an indentation when removed.

3. Place a sieve/strainer over a large bowl and pass the cream through it to remove any lumps. Whisk in a pinch of salt, the butter, and vanilla extract (if not using vanilla bean). Place plastic wrap directly on the surface of the cream — if it’s exposed to air for too long, it will develop a skin on top. Refrigerate until using.

*Instead of using 1 egg + 2 yolks, you could use 5 yolks and it will make a richer pastry cream. Personally I use a whole egg in my pastry cream because I don’t like having tons of egg whites leftover from using a large amount of yolks, but do as you wish!