Matthew Woolen is a master pastry chef and has worked in a variety of Seattle restaurants, including gastropub Old Sage, Zhu Dang, and a gluten-free restaurant called Capitol Cider.

Matthew Woolen

Pastry cream—also known as crème pâtissière—is a sweet, stirred <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/custard-parametric-analysis">custard</a> made with eggs, dairy, sugar, and starch. It’s used for filling tarts, <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/how-to-make-bulletproof-fluffy-yeasted-doughnuts-at-home">doughnuts</a>, <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/the-secret-to-mastering-croissants-at-home">croissants</a>, and you guessed it ... cream puffs. It’s also served all by itself with fresh berries and granola, maybe with a little whipped cream.Pastry cream is versatile, because it sets up into a soft and sliceable gel when chilled. And with a little whisking, it takes on a smooth and silky pipeable consistency. These properties are due to the inclusion of starch, which stabilizes the proteins in eggs and helps them to resist curdling when the custard is brought up to the gelatinization temperature of the starch.This pastry cream is an upgrade on the classic. We use a higher proportion of egg yolks and a bit of heavy cream to produce a richer-tasting custard, and we employ a final mixing step as the custard cools to produce a super smooth consistency. Otherwise, the method relies on a bit of tried-and-true technique: heating the dairy with aromatics to infuse it with flavor; using some of the heated dairy to temper the eggs before incorporating them into the custard, which makes the egg proteins more resistant to curdling; and cooking the mixture at a boil for at least 30 seconds in order to deactivate the amylase in the egg yolks, which is an enzyme that will destroy the starch in the cooked pastry cream, affecting its texture, flavor, and behavior.

Pastry Cream