chocolate pastry cream
originally posted november 27,2022
Pretty standard chocolate pastry cream recipe we’ve got here. I’m actually not a huge fan of chocolate things- I know. But, this pastry cream makes a great filling for donuts- and thats about the one time I fall victim to the allures of chocolate.
In all the same ways you can flavor vanilla pastry cream, you can flavor this version. Steep some chilis in the milk for a spicy chocolate moment. Add hazelnut praline paste for a nutella-esque moment. The sky is the limit, and even then try to push it.
This recipe makes 1000 grams of pastry cream- which I find enough to fill an 8” cake with 3 layers of cream and 4 thin layers of cake. Just the way I like it. It’ll also fill about 18 brioche donuts if that’s your thing.
Ingredients:
300 grams milk
280 grams heavy cream
45 grams cocoa powder
1 vanilla bean scraped (or a teaspoon of vanilla bean paste/extract)
3 grams kosher salt
150 grams eggs (about 3 whole large eggs)
120 grams granulated sugar
40 grams cornstarch
85 grams butter
Directions:
Place your milk, heavy cream, cocoa powder, salt and vanilla into a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir every so often to avoid scorching the the cocoa
While that heats up, whisk together your cornstarch and sugar to eliminate any lumps. Add your eggs and whisk together until a homogenous paste forms. You’'ll really want to aerate this for about a minute or two- not fully necessary it’ll help the milk mixture to temper in easier in the next step!
Once your milk mixture is at a simmer, temper into the egg mixture. To temper: ladle in a small amount of the hot milk into the eggs, whisking to combine. Add another ladle full and repeat. Do this about 3/4 times before adding the tempered egg mixture back into the saucepan. You do this to slowly bring the eggs up to temp and avoid shocking/scrambling them. If the eggs scramble it will leave you with a grainy texture and eggy taste.
Once tempered add the egg mixture back into the saucepan.
Whisk constantly to avoid scrambling. Continue to whisk until your cream begins to thicken and reaches a soft boil (a few slow popping and thick bubbles will form.)
At this point remove your cream from the heat and strain into your desired container. This is the final frontier to make sure you don’t have any scrambled eggy bits in your cream. Add your butter and immersion blend until smooth. If you don’t have an immersion blender you can use a regular blender or just whisk to combine. The immersion blender though leaves you with the most perfect creamy texture.
Cover directly with plastic wrap. Label and date the container!
Use it how ever you’d like ♡
* If you find your PC has set too firm in the fridge, put it in the blender with the paddle to loosen it up a bit. or do it by hand with a spatula *