Making Crème Anglaise

The process of making crème anglaise is almost identical to that of other stirred custards like pastry cream. It simply involves heating your milk and/or cream mixture, then slowly adding it to the yolks so as to avoid cooking them. After that you simply bring the mixture up to temperature and presto — you’re done. Start by scraping the vanilla seeds into the milk. You can substitute a teaspoon of vanilla extract, but custards make real vanilla shine. Use it if you can.

READ ON

Crème Anglaise Recipe

Crème anglaise is a standard that every aspiring pastry maker needs to know how to prepare. Essentially it’s just a custard (of the “stirred” variety), that’s so thin that it can be used as a sauce. It’s most common application, however, is as an ice cream base. To make it all you need is:

seeds from half a vanilla bean
2 cups whole milk (for a richer result use half milk and half cream)
4 egg yolks
1/3 cup sugar

READ ON