Eggless Pastry Cream Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What can I substitute for pastry cream? ›

Cheater No-Cook Pastry Cream

Blend heavy cream, pudding mix, sour cream, and salt in a medium bowl using a whisk or a hand mixer set on medium speed until well-blended and smooth. Refrigerate for 5 to 10 minutes.

At its most basic, pastry cream is a combination of milk, eggs, and starch that are cooked together to create a rich and thick custard that's a workhorse in the baker's kitchen.

The focus of this week's lesson – When eggs are exposed to high heat they curdle. But, starch releases amylose, coating egg proteins and hindering them from joining too tightly resulting in curdling.

Pastry cream, on the other hand, is thought to be French in origin. It has a considerably thicker consistency, allowing it to be piped into or spread onto pastries and other dishes. This is because, while its base is the same as custard sauce, it relies on the addition of cornstarch to reach completion.

Half-and-half + butter

Because heavy cream is so high in fat, you can often create a substitute with other high-fat ingredients. In terms of taste and consistency, a combination of half-and-half and butter is one of the best substitutes for heavy whipping cream—it tastes just like the real thing.

Pastry cream is made of milk, egg yolks, sugar, cornstarch, and vanilla. Is pastry cream the same as custard? Pastry cream is a type of custard, while custard is simply a liquid (often milk) thickened with eggs.

Many pastries have a shiny finish due to egg-wash before baking. Anything filled with custard is probably made with eggs as is sweet cheese filled pastries. Brioche has eggs as does bread pudding. I would ask the bakery whether or not it has eggs in it or on it.

I have used soy, almond and cashew milk. They all worked well. Make sure to use unsweetened for best results; it may be too sweet if you use a sweetened milk. I have tried this using full fat coconut milk AND a can of coconut cream, and they both work well.

The cornstarch: This recipe makes a very firm pastry cream that, when chilled, cuts neatly — a particularly nice thing when you're using it for tarts and cakes. If you'd like a more fluid cream, use a little less cornstarch. The butter: The butter adds richness to the cream as well as body.

Runny pastry cream most often comes from undercooking the egg yolk mixture. If you remove it from the heat too soon, the amylase in the egg yolks won't break down and will prevent the cream from fully setting. If you find your crème pâtissière is too thin, return to heat and bring to a boil over medium heat to thicken.

Why is my pastry cream rubbery? ›

Don't panic when your cooled pastry cream will look rubbery – just give it a good whisk. As the pastry cream cools and sets, it can initially have a rubbery, gummy and slightly curdled appearance as you first start stirring it.

Put simply, pastry cream is a type of custard. Adding cornstarch to the vanilla custard will give you a thick, firm substance (almost like vanilla pudding) that will hold its shape when piped. Custard that you can pour, which is only thickened with eggs, is actually called crème anglaise.

Bavarian cream and pastry cream are not the same. While both are custard-based fillings, Bavarian cream is lightened with whipped cream and set with gelatin, giving it a mousse-like texture, while pastry cream is a thick and creamy custard made with eggs, milk, sugar, and flour or cornstarch.

They are similar, but not quite the same. The main difference is that custard is actually less firm. Custard is typically thickened only with eggs (which you might recall is how we made the custard for our Creme Brulee), while pastry cream is thickened with a starch (corn starch, in this instance).

Diplomat cream is simply pastry cream lightened with whipped cream — often with the addition of gelatin for stability — to make it airier.

“Heavy cream”, “whipping cream”, or even “double cream” will work here. This lends a rich creaminess to the finished product. If you're in a pinch, you can substitute both the milk and cream for half and half. Egg yolks.

Pastry cream delivers in flavor — sweet and custard-like — but lacks lightness. Whipped cream is as light as it comes but doesn't have much flavor or stability.

Substitute Pastry Flour with All-Purpose and Cake Flour

To create the most reliable substitute for pastry flour, combine 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour with 1/2 cup of cake flour for every 1 cup of pastry flour needed.

Biscuit dough: Biscuit dough is made with flour, butter, and baking powder. It creates a tender, flaky, and slightly dense texture. You can use store-bought or homemade biscuit dough and roll it out thin for recipes that call for puff pastry. Biscuit dough works well in pot pies or turnovers [2].