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How about a delicious crème pâtissière? Posted by on Mar 23, 2011 in Vocabulary

Ce n’est un secret pour personne (It is a secret to no one), the French have since a long time, at least since the early days of Henry IV, elevated the confection of la pâtissière to a fine and refined culinary art.

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Today French Blog post will show you how to prepare a tasty crème pâtissière classique (classic confectioner’s custard)

Pour cela, vous aurez seulement besoin de (For that, you will only need):

  • 400 g of lait (milk)
  • 1/3 of gousse de vanille (vanilla bean)
  • 3 jaunes d’oeufs (egg yolk)
  • 80 g of sucre semoule (castor sugar, or, if you prefer, “granulated sugar”)
  • 40 g of farine (flour)
  1. Boil the milk with the fresh vanille grattée (scratched vanilla) and its graines.
  2. Whip the jaunes d’oeufs (egg yolks) and the sucre (sugar) until you have a good mélange (mix)
  3. Ajoutez (add) the flour and le lait bouillant (the boiling milk) while mixing the whole thing.
  4. Put everything back into la casserole (saucepan), then cook la crème (the cream) while gently stirring it.
  5. Then, ôtez la crème du feu (remove the cream from the fire) once it reached l’ébullition (boiling), remove la gousse de vanille (again, the vanilla bean), and versez (pour) the cream in a cold pie dish.
  6. To preserve la crème pâtissière, be sure to cover its surface with a film alimentaire (also known as “film étirable“, meaning “food wrap”, or “cling wrap” as it’s called in the UK)

Let the cream refroidir (cool down) before you start using it for your delicious pâtisseries !

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A slightly different yet very easy way of preparing la crème pâtissière is presented to you by “L’atelier des Chefs”

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With a crème pâtissière you could make, for example, a “Saint Honoré” cream, which you can also find sometimes under the name “crème chiboust“: It is essentially a mix of meringue and crème pâtissière.

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* Et pour la petite histoire (and for the anecdote): What’s the unsuspected connection between a boulanger (baker), Meringe, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous British detective, Sherlock Holmes?

Est-ce que c’est un mystère que vous pensez pouvoir résoudre ? (Is it a mystery that you think you can solve?)

La réponse: Demain! (The answer: Tomorrow!)

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