I'm adding two cups of whole milk into a saucepan for this recipe you could use vanilla extract
but I'm gonna go a little bit all out and use about a teaspoon and a half of this vanilla bean paste it's made with vanilla beans and it is amazing it also has the added bonus of having all the little specks of vanilla now
I'm gonna heat this over medium-low heat and whisk it up just let that vanilla infused and to warm the milk up as well now
I'm separating six eggs so yolks we're gonna use today the whites you can set aside and use them to make a meringue or an egg white omelet or whatever you'd like and six eggs now in a medium bowl add the six egg yolks 2/3 of a cup of sugar and whisk together well I'm gonna lift it up and use some muscle power okay
I don't know if you can tell the difference but this is like a nice beautiful light lemony color now very sunshiny also pretty thick now we're gonna add in a quarter cup of corn starch and whisk it well so there's no lumps the cornstarch is kind of a cheat but it's so much better to have a pastry cream that's nice and thick than to have a one that's running okay
that is nice and light and fluffy I don't know if you can see but it's a really nice consistency I have some really nice warm steamy milk infused with vanilla it looks amazing with all those little specks of the bean in there
I need to temper this so what I'm gonna do is take a quarter cup of this hot milk and then drizzle it and slowly while I've vigorously whisk basically you're getting this egg yolk mixture warm with the quarter cup so won't cook the eggs and make everything scrambled and gross has to be silky and smooth gonna place this in here like a little nest it's much better this smells like heaven okay
well mixed this is going to go over heat now while we whisk continuously until it thickens up and changes into the amazing pastry cream let's transfer this back to our pot and take it back onto the heat I placed the pan over medium-high heat and I'm whisking continuously with a French whisk it's a narrower whisk that can get the corners of the pan so that nothing gets left behind it just changed consistency you can see it thickened up turning the heat off and it's like magic nothing happens nothing happens nothing happens everything happens at once okay it's all done
I'm gonna whisk in one tablespoon of cold butter but take a look at the consistency right now look at that it is amazing and all those little specks of vanilla it's gorgeous one tablespoon of cold butter plop it in whisk it and it'll melt and infuse into the pastry cream it's like the pastry version of putting ice and water to cool it down okay that butter melted it smells amazing
I might have tasted it off camera too the last step is to transfer this to a bowl and we're gonna cover it with some plastic and chill it then we can use it all right so we don't want a skin to develop on top while this is setting we're gonna cover it with plastic and just press the plastic down so there's no air gaps refrigerate this until it's nice and cool , and then it's time to start piping your eclairs your cream puffs eating it by the spoonful like
I would whatever you want so excited my pastry cream is all set it is really firm almost like jello but more and more and more delicious it is amazing this stuff is perfect for filling eclairs filling cream puffs you can use it in fruit tarts as the base you can even put it like in-between vanilla cake layers and have the best experience of your life
I promise you mmm my mouth is literally watering because I have a spoonful in front of me right now and it's me taking bite after bite after bite as soon as we're done with this take anyways if you want to lighten this by the way you can just whip it up with some whipped cream so take the whipped cream fold it into your pastry cream and now you have diplomat cream and that let's just kind of like go further because this is a full recipe but it doesn't make a ton so if you're making a huge amount of eclairs you can you know cheat it a little bit and add that whipped cream in there anyways it's time for a bite
mmm it is so so good and really one of my favorite things to eat I hope you get a chance to make this recipe
thank you for reading
