Rational Pastry Cream

I've been using some of Michael Ruhlmans' rational (as "in the form of ratios" but meant as a double entendre) recipes to prepare a few of the basic (as in foundational) things that I've been cooking. Last night I made Pastry Cream or as they call it in Hati, Montreal and even in France, "Crème pâtissière."

While some folks might be inclined to shove their faces into the pot and siphon this sweet densely textured, highly aromatic of super premium conflict-free Indonesian artisan-grown vanilla bean (I'm kidding, I've no idea where the beans came from.), I plan to use it to fill profiteroles once it has been loosened up with whipped cream.

Here is Ruhlman's recipe. It is essentially the same recipe for pastry cream that appears in Ratio except that I included the weight of the cornstarch (he gave volume measure : 6TBS) and the technique used to combine it with the other ingredients (He suggests making a slurry, I beat it into the egg and sugar mixture dry).

All ingredients are weighed except the vanilla bean.

milk 8 z
heavy cream 8z
vanilla bean, split* 1 each

Sugar 4z
Egg yolk 4z
Cornstarch 1.75 z
Butter 2z

1) combine milk, cream and vanilla bean in sauce pan and heat to approx. 190 degrees F

2) beat/ whisk sugar, then cornstarch into egg yolk

3) beat/whisk approx 6 fl oz hot milk into yolk mixture

4) combine remaining milk with egg, return to pot, put on low-medium fire and stir with wooden spoon/paddle until thick

5) whisk in butter

6) store in container with plastic film or parchment applied directly to surface to prevent skin from forming


*split along the long axis/lengthwise so the seeds will spill into the mixture