Have you made vanilla or chocolate pudding from a mix recently?
Childhood memories must be playing tricks on me: those mixes just do not taste
as good as I remember them.
Back in the day, it was dinner at 6 – don’t be late! – and if
we had dessert on a weekday, it was usually watermelon or peaches in summer,
and in winter, jello, canned peaches or pudding, served up in footed dessert
cups. But that was only if you ate
everything on your plate, of course.
Sometimes the vanilla pudding was folded together with
bananas and vanilla wafers in a square Pyrex baking dish. And always, whipped cream from a can was
available to squirt on top. Simple tastes for simple times.
Following is a recipe for pastry cream which undoubtedly tastes better than
those long ago desserts, although it can never surpass the warm memories of time spent at the family table, admonitions of no elbows on the table! no talking with your mouth full! no interrupting! notwithstanding.
There is a richness and depth of flavor from the combination
of half and half, egg yolks, pure vanilla and fresh butter in this pastry cream
which simply can’t be duplicated in pudding mixes.
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Grover’s Mill Coffee House in West Windsor,
known for great coffee - they roast the beans themselves! - just opened a café in our Library, and I was
honored to make the cakes for their Grand Opening: white cake with almond scented pastry cream,
and whipped cream frosting. The cakes,
never from a mix of course, were enormous.
The ingredients tally: 48 eggs, 9 sticks of butter, 3 quarts of half and
half for the pastry cream, and another 3 quarts of heavy cream for the whipped cream frosting (certainly
not from a can!).
One customer came to the desk saying, “I just had to come
over to see who baked this, because I took one taste and thought, “A real
person baked this, not a bakery!” “.
I used The America’s
Test Kitchen Family Baking Book (in our Library!) for their pastry cream recipe. Pastry
cream is a very straightforward, but not necessarily “easy” preparation. You have to follow the directions exactly
(don’t run out of the kitchen to do something else in the middle!), but if you do,
your pastry cream will be perfect. A little technique here goes a long way.
Pastry Cream
adapted from America’s Test Kitchen
Family Baking Book
2 cups half-and-half
½ cup granulated sugar, divided as follows: 6 Tablespoons , plus 2 Tablespoons
½ teaspoon kosher salt, (or ¼ teaspoon regular table salt)
5 egg yolks
3 Tablespoons cornstarch
4 Tablespoons butter (1/2 stick), cut into 4 pieces
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
½ teaspoon almond extract (optional)
In a medium saucepan, heat up the half and half, 6
Tablespoons of the sugar, and the salt together over medium high heat, stirring
occasionally to keep from burning or sticking to the pan. In the meantime, in a medium bowl whisk
together the egg yolks, 2 Tablespoons of sugar, and cornstarch.
When the half and half just comes to a simmer, ladle out one
cupful and add in a slow steady stream to the egg yolk mixture, being sure to
whisk constantly (a helper could come in handy here – or just nest your bowl in
a damp kitchen towel so the bowl doesn’t move).
This gradual addition of the hot liquid brings up the
temperature of the egg yolks slowly so the eggs don’t turn into hard bits of
scrambled egg.
When that cup of hot half and half is completely
incorporated, slowly whisk the egg mixture back into the bowl of the still
simmering remaining half and half. Then
lower the heat to medium and whisk until thickened and a few bubbles pop slowly
on the surface of the pudding.
Immediately remove from heat and add in the butter and vanilla
extract (and almond extract, if using).
Transfer to a bowl and cover the top with plastic wrap placed
directly on the surface of the cream (or a piece of parchment paper if you
prefer not to have plastic in contact with your food).
Cool for 3 hours. (Can be made a few days ahead of time.)
Besides using pastry cream for a great cake filling, make a quick dessert by combining with bananas and vanilla wafers for a retro combination; mixing with peaches and gingersnaps; or pairing with blueberries, raspberries and amaretti cookies. Adding a flavored liqueur like framboise (raspberry), Grand Marnier (orange), or Amaretto (almond), when adding the vanilla extract would be a nice addition too, along with a dollop of fresh whipped cream.
After consuming the fake “pastry cream” which most bakeries
serve, people forget how delicious simple things made from scratch can be. This is one of those
quintessentially old fashioned recipes that makes you feel like you’ve
re-discovered an old friend, even if you’ve only ever had the boxed
pudding mixes.
Try this with coffee made from the freshly roasted coffee beans now available in our new cafe - the Grover's Mill Coffee House at the South Brunswick Public Library, and enjoy with a good book!
Diane Whitman
Twitter @whitlibrarian
Reference Librarian
Grover's Mill Coffee Loyalist
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