Crème Légère
Crème Légère
The traditional French pastry cream.
Ingredients
- 450 Grams(16 oz) Milk
- 60 Grams(2.1 oz) Cornstarch
- 120 Grams(4.2 oz) Sugar
- 4 Egg Yolks
- 60 Grams(2.1 oz) Butter (unsalted and cold)
- 1 Vanilla Pod
- 4.5 (9 grams/0.3 oz gelatin bloomed in cold water) Gelatin Leaves
- 360 Grams(12.7 oz) Heavy Cream (35%) (cold)
Instructions
Pastry Cream (step 1 of making creme légère):
- Dissolve cornstarch in 1/4 cup of milk, combine rest of the milk with sugar and bring to a boil.
- Whisk egg yolks into the cornstarch mixture.
- Pour 1/3 of the boiling milk over the eggs, then return milk and the milk & egg mixture to heat. Boil for about 1 minute, whisking.
- Remove from the heat and whisk in butter and vanilla.
- Transfer to a cold container, press some plastic film directly on the cream and chill immediately.
Finish the cream filling (crème légère):
- Soak gelatin leaves in cold water until softened.
- Remove from water, squeeze well and keep handy.
- Take 200g of cold pastry cream, place it in a microwave safe bowl and zap it until hot. Add gelatin to hot cream and whisk well until gelatin is completely dissolved.
- Add the rest of the cold pastry cream (340g) and whisk well to combine.
- Use an immersion blender if you still see lumps of undissolved gelatin).
- Fold whipped cream into pastry cream in three doses.
- Transfer cream to a piping bag and use immediately before it starts to set.
Notes
You can use the crème légère to fill choux pastry puffs, for a filling on an unbaked tart (where you bake just the dough but not the fruit), in the baba au rhum or with the addition of some whipped cream create a simple dessert with fruits or chocolate for example.