Vanilla Bean Pastry Cream

Pastry cream is a thick and silky smooth custard. It is incredibly versatile and can be flavored with spices (vanilla, cinnamon), chocolates and other ingredients (honey, maple syrup, etc.). It is excellent plain (flavored with vanilla) or can be viewed as a 'blank canvas' for you. This is a chance to impart flavor and personality to your desserts!


What is pastry cream used for?

Pastry cream is one of those wondrous things in the dessert world because of its versatility.

Here's a short list of pastry cream uses for you:

  • Eclair filling
  • Cream puffs
  • Between cake layers
  • Boston Cream Pie
  • Trifles


It also is a base for many other creams in the dessert world, such as diplomat cream, which is lightened by the addition of freshly whipped cream or Chiboust Cream, which is pastry cream + gelatin.

I often make pastry cream to fill tarts, as my fruit tarts are my most requested dessert. Another common way in my house (my husband's favorite 🥰) is in banana cream pie!

How can you flavor pastry cream?

There are a couple ways to experiment with the cream in terms of flavorings. You have two ways to introduce flavor in a pastry cream:

  1. During the milk heating; or
  2. at the end when you stir in the butter.

For the milk heating process you can steep whole spices to flavor the milk: cinnamon sticks, cardamom pods, a chai blend (!!), and just remove the spices during the straining process.

If you want to add extracts (almond, maple, etc.), you can simply add them at the end when stirring in your butter.

Some extra tips:

The secret to a silky smooth cream is to whisk continuously when cooking the egg/milk mixture. Whisk your heart out ... make sure you get the sides and bottom really well.

If you happen to get lumps in your finished cream, however, don't worry! Use your strainer again (wash it though since we put raw eggs through it) and push the cream through with a spatula. That should relieve you of some of the lump-age.

What happens if the pastry cream is too thick?

If you have some white chocolate lying around, toss an ounce or two in the warm cream, and this should loosen it up a bit. White chocolate is not strong in flavor at all and will lighten the cream.

Let's make some pastry cream!

Step-by-Step


Hi! I'm Adriana.

I built this site for the curious home baker. I'm a huge science + tech nerd; you'll feel right at home if you like exploring and experimenting in the kitchen too.

Here you can build cakes with my Cakeculator and find recipes to accompany the videos from YouTube, Tiktok, and Instagram.

I have lots of things to share... I hope you have fun around here!

More about me