French Pastry Cream (Crème Pâtissière)

A basis of countless dessert recipes, French pastry cream or crème pâtissière is on the list of every baker. Learn how to make French custard and flavor it in your favorite ways!

Mastering the pastry cream recipe is one of those first classes in a pastry school that leaves students feeling accomplished and eager for more.

But it is not rocket science; it is easy and budget-friendly to make at home. And once you master this or an Italian pastry cream recipe, your baking skills will be set for life, especially with a foolproof recipe.

Jump to:

• What is creme patissiere?
• Why you should try this recipe
• Ingredients
• How to make vanilla pastry cream
• Recipe variations
• Storage instructions
• Equipment
• Expert Tips
• Troubleshooting
• FAQ
• Here are recipes with pastry cream
• Need to adjust your baking pan size?
• Recipe card
• Comments

French creme patissiere serves as a base for frangipane, mousseline, and other creams.

It is a perfect filling for cakes like Boston cream pie, many French pastries like French fruit tarts, mille-feuille, Paris-Brest, choux pastry like cream puffs, and eclairs.

It also goes great with crepes, pancakes, and waffles for breakfast. Easy and quick to make, vanilla pastry cream is enjoyable to eat with a spoon too. So, let's learn the pastry basics with this recipe.

What is creme patissiere?

French pastry cream, creme pat or crème pâtissière in French, is a thick French cream made with egg yolks, sugar, and milk, thickened with a starchy substance (flour, cornstarch, or both) and flavored.

The pastry cream was invented by François Massialot in 1691. The recipe first appeared in his book "Le Cuisinier Roïal et Bourgeois," translated as "The Royal and Bourgeois Chef" in English.

Why you should try this recipe

The simple French pastry cream recipe makes it easy to achieve an authentic flavor.

In addition, the basic ingredients are affordably priced and can be found at your local grocery store.

The cream is used to make other types of creams:

• Diplomat cream (crème diplomate) - a pastry cream with added gelatin and whipped cream.
• Crème Légère - a pastry cream with added whipped cream.
• Chiboust cream (crème chiboust) - a pastry cream with added with Italian meringue.
• Mousseline cream (Crème mousseline) - a pastry cream with added butter.
• Frangipane cream - a pastry cream with added almond cream.
• Tropézienne cream - a pastry cream with buttercream.

Ingredients

Here is a quick overview of what ingredients you will need. Follow the full recipe below for exact amounts and instructions. I recommend making the recipe as written for the best results.

• Milk: the recipe calls for whole milk due to its high-fat content. If you want to make cream lighter, replace it with low-fat or semi-skimmed milk (not skim milk) but expect the cream to be flavorless and loose in texture.

To enrich the cream, try to replace ½ cup or 120 ml of milk with whipping or heavy cream.

• Eggs give flavor and structure to the pastry cream. Use egg yolks to make crème pâtissière, or replace 4 egg yolks with 2 whole eggs to make the cream lighter.

The amount of eggs or yolks depends on the expected texture and fineness. Some recipes call from 4 to 6 large egg yolks per 2 cups of milk.

Use egg whites to make meringue desserts: cake Merveilleux, meringue roulade, or classic Pavlova.

• Sugar: Use granulated sugar or refined caster sugar to speed up the dilution.

For a lighter version of the cream, reduce the amount of sugar and increase the number of vanilla beans to 2 or 3. To make the French pastry cream filling for a pie or tart, increase the sugar to ½ to ¾ cup or 100 to 150 g.

• All-purpose flour works as a binding and texturing agent. You can replace it with cornstarch or rice flour.

• Cornstarch is activated with contact with liquid; heat causes the cream to thicken.

It is your preference to use only flour replacing starch in the recipe (the cream will be firmer), only starch (the cream will be lighter), or a mix of the two, like in the recipe below.

• Vanilla: classic pastry cream is made with vanilla flavor due to scraped seeds of fresh vanilla beans. You can use up to three vanilla pods to make the recipe.

Replace vanilla beans with ½-1 teaspoon of vanilla extract or one tablespoon of vanilla bean paste.

• Unsalted butter is an optional ingredient in the pastry cream. It brings a flavor and a more pronounced taste and improves the cream's texture and preservation.

You can replace 1 oz. or 30 g butter with 1.4 oz. or 40 g mascarpone cheese if desired.

• Gelatin sheets are another optional ingredient. Adding gelatin to the cream helps obtain a light, supple, silky pastry cream that retains its shape.

How to make vanilla pastry cream

Using a flour sifter, sift all-purpose flour and corn starch in a large bowl and place aside. Soak gelatin sheets in cold water for 10 minutes.

Separate the egg yolks from the whites using an egg separator and place the yolks in a mixing bowl.

Add sugar and beat it with a hand whisk for 20 seconds. Then add the sifted dry ingredients and whisk until the mixture is thick and whitish (photo 1).

Pour milk into a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Split a vanilla bean in half lengthwise, scrape the seeds with a knife, and add them and the pod to the milk (photo 2). 

Cover the pot with a lid and bring milk to a boil over low heat to infuse the vanilla flavor into the milk. Discard the split vanilla bean.

Remove milk from the heat, and slowly pour ⅔ of the milk over the yolk and sugar mixture to temper the eggs and mix. 

Expert tip: make sure to pour milk gradually and whisk constantly. Otherwise, the mixture might curdle and resemble sweet scrambled eggs. Just remember that egg yolks start to cook at about 140-158°F or 60-70°C. 

Pour the tempered yolk mixture back into the remaining milk and mix well. 

Return the saucepan to low-medium heat and stir vigorously with a hand whisk to prevent the cream from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Cook the mixture over medium heat for 2 minutes until thickened (photo 3).

Note: The cream should boil for 2 minutes. While the gelatinization of wheat starch occurs from 125-147°F or 52 to 64°C, the gelatinization of cornstarch - from 143 to 165°F or 62 to 74°C; the boiling temperature is still necessary for the thickening of the cream. Also, boiling for at least 1.5 minutes is required to sterilize the cream.

Add the drained gelatine to the hot cream and mix to dissolve it. Then add very cold butter, cut into small pieces, and mix (photo 4).

Pass the cream through a fine sieve, pour it into a shallow dish, and cover it with cling film on contact.

The plastic wrap should touch the surface of the cream to prevent the formation of the crust (or skin). Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Whip the cold pastry cream with an electric mixer for a minute or vigorously with a hand whisk to aerate the cream and restore its homogeneity and suppleness before using it.

Recipe variations

Vanilla pastry cream is a classic pastry cream recipe. To make it even more fragrant, you can use hot or cold milk infusions.

Add vanilla seeds and vanilla pod split in half to milk, bring it to boil, and let it steep, covered with a lid, for 30-60 minutes. Then remove the vanilla pod and warm up the milk again.

Or you can add vanilla seeds and split the vanilla pod into the cold milk. Cover it with plastic film and let it infuse overnight before making the recipe.

You can change the taste of your pastry cream by adding different flavors. It's never been easier to create unique and delicious thick custard variations.

Here are a few methods to incorporate the flavors into the pastry cream.

Milk infusions

Infusing milk to add flavor to your pastry cream is the most common tried-and-true method.

Making vanilla pastry cream is a great example, but you can infuse your pastry cream with just about any flavor you want.

Experiment with mint leaves, verbena, star anise, and licorice. All of them should be infused into the milk before making the cream.

Here are a few examples for your inspiration.

Cinnamon pastry cream: add 1 cinnamon stick to milk and bring it to a boil. Remove it before adding it to the egg yolk mixture.

Earl grey pastry cream: bring milk to a boil. Remove from the heat, infuse the tea bags or tea leaves in the milk for 3 minutes, then strain.

Coffee creme patissiere: add a few drops of coffee extract or strong coffee to the hot milk.

Or add 2-3 tablespoons of coarsely crushed coffee beans to the hot milk, cover the pot and leave to infuse for 10 minutes. Pass the milk through a fine-mesh sieve and proceed with the recipe.

Citrus pastry cream made with the zest: add orange or lemon zest to the hot milk and let it infuse, covered, for 5 minutes. Pass the flavored milk through a fine-mesh sieve and continue with the recipe.

Dry stir-ins method

Dry stir-ins such as cocoa powder, ground cinnamon, nutmeg, and chopped chocolate can be added to starches or mixed in at the end of cooking. So, here is a few examples.

Chocolate pastry cream: add 1.8-3.5 oz. or 50-100 g of chopped milk, white or dark chocolate, to the hot milk.

Or you can use about 3 ½ tablespoons or 25 g of cocoa powder instead of real chocolate. Stir until the chocolate is melted, and continue with the recipe.

Another way to incorporate chocolate into pastry cream recipes is to add chopped chocolate at the end of cooking, off-heat.

Matcha pastry cream: add 2 teaspoons of matcha green tea powder to the hot cream, off-heat, and mix.

Wet stir-ins method

Most of the wet stir-ins should be added to the finished pastry cream once it has been cooled. Why? Because some of them can interfere with the cream's setting.

The wet stir-ins method makes these pastry cream variations:

Lemon pastry cream: flavor your cream with ½ teaspoon of lemon juice once the cream has been cooled.

Coconut pastry cream: replace milk with coconut milk or add coconut extract at the end of cooking, out of the heat.

Almond pastry cream: add almond extract to the hot pastry cream out of the heat.

Passionfruit pastry cream: add ½ cup passionfruit puree to the hot cream, off-heat.

Adding paste

Pastes and paste-like ingredients (peanut butter, pistachio paste, hazelnut praline, Nutella, or tahini paste) should be added to the hot pastry cream at the end of cooking. Here is how!

Pistachio pastry cream: add 1.8 oz. or 50 g of pistachio paste to the still warm cream.

Hazelnut pastry cream (aka praline pastry cream): add2.8 oz. or 80 g of hazelnut praline at the end of cooking, out of the heat.

Peanut butter pastry cream: omit the butter, add 3.5 oz. or 100 g of smooth peanut butter to the hot pastry cream, and stir well.

Adding alcohol

The alcohol-flavored pastry cream is an exciting alternative to bland cream recipes. So let's try our hands at making some.

Orange pastry cream: add 1 teaspoon of orange liqueur, for example, Grand Marnier, at the end of cooking.

Eggnog pastry cream: replace a cup of milk (236 ml) with the same amount of eggnog and bring this mixture to a boil.

Butterscotch pastry cream: flavor the cream with a few drops of butterscotch added once the cream has cooled.

Kirsch pastry cream: add a few drops of kirsch to the cooled cream and mix.

Of course, gluten-, sugar-, dairy-free, and eggless recipes exist to adapt to different diets.

Gluten-free pastry cream: replace flour with cornstarch, potato starch, or rice flour.

Sugar-free pastry cream: omit the sugar and use ½ tablespoon of liquid sweeten for 1 cup (236 ml) of milk to make a low-carb version of the cream.

Vegan pastry cream: replace whole milk with vegetable milk (oat milk, almond milk, soy milk, hazelnut milk, etc.) to make dairy-free pastry cream.

Eggless pastry cream: omit egg yolks and increase the amount of sugar to 3.5 oz. or 100 g. Continue with the recipe, but keep in mind that the texture will be a little thicker and less creamy.

Finally, try playing with different ratios of milk, sugar, eggs, starches, and flavors to create your favorite pastry cream.

Storage instructions

Pastry cream should be stored in an airtight container with a piece of plastic wrap placed directly on the surface and refrigerated at +4°C for 2 days.

Interestingly, French pastry cream made with only all-purpose flour rich in amylose is more stable while storing.

Can you freeze pastry cream? No, it is not recommended to freeze pastry cream.

Equipment

To make the French pastry cream, you will need a saucepan and mixing bowl. Plus, one hand whisk.

A small amount of baking equipment is needed for this recipe.

Expert Tips

1. Omit gelatin and butter to make a classic pastry cream recipe to use as a base for other types of creams.
2. Make sure to cook the cream over low to medium heat, stirring it constantly against the bottom of the pan.
3. Cover the cream with plastic wrap in contact to prevent it from forming a skin on the surface of the cream.
4. The best way to speed up the cooling of the cream is to use an ice bath. First, prepare a bowl with a sieve over an ice water bath. Take the cream off the heat and pass it through the strainer into the chilled bowl. Then whisk the cream until it cools down.

Troubleshooting

Please, don't panic if your cream is too runny, too thick, or lumpy. A few adjustments will help you obtain a perfect texture. 

My pastry cream is too thin

Why? The runny pastry cream is not cooked enough. If it is too liquid, it will make your pie or tart base soggy.

What's the solution? How to make pastry cream thicker? Bring your pastry cream back over the low heat for a few minutes until the desired consistency. 

If you aren't pleased with the texture, mix one teaspoon of cornstarch in a bit of cold milk, add to the cream, and cook it for a few minutes.

My pastry cream is too thick

Why? The pastry cream is overcooked, or the quantities of the ingredients are not respected. 

It might also be related to the brand of starch used or the size of the eggs.

You should remove the pastry cream from heat when it starts to thicken because it also thickens when it cools.

What's the solution? Add cold milk little by a little to thin out the mixture. Then, mix the cream until you obtain the desired texture.

Pastry cream is lumpy

Why? Lumps may appear if:

• you didn't sift the flour before adding it;
• you poured the hot milk quickly into the egg yolk and sugar mixture;
• you didn't whisk the preparation constantly (against the bottom of the pan) while cooking.

What's the solution? Pass the pastry cream through a sieve or try to use an immersion blender, but don't over-blend the cream: it might turn into a liquid.

My pastry cream is grainy

Why? Overheating and overcooking may result in grainy pastry cream. It means that it is curdled at some point.

What's the solution? If you tried to strain your cream and the curdled eggs are still there, you can't fix the cream. Make it again.

FAQ

Here are recipes with pastry cream

• Paris-Brest
• French Strawberry Tart
• Orange Upside-down Cake
• Strawberry Pistachio Tart

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The nutritional information has been calculated using an online recipe nutrition calculator such as Verywellfit.com and is intended for informational purposes only. These figures should be used as a general guideline and not be construed as a guarantee.