Week 3: Pastry Cream

Piping test with Split E. A good pastry cream must hold its shape when piped.

Last week, I found a reference recipe (Split C) and started noticing some trends with the butter to egg ratio. This week, I will be exploring the butter to egg ratio in a more controlled way. I'll take Split C and explore some splits with more or less butter, adjusting the egg yolk to keep the same total weight. The reference (Split C) had the highest butter percentage and lowest egg yolk percentage of all the recipes from my research, so I don't know that there is much room to push to higher butter content. I'll thus only do one split at higher butter content (Split E), while I do two at lower butter content (Splits F and G). For the step size, I'll use the weight of an egg yolk (~17 g) since I want to be able to use an integer number of egg yolks in my final recipe. In each case, I will also use 1/2 tsp of kosher salt and 1.5 Tbsp of vanilla extract. Vanilla bean paste or real vanilla bean will ultimately give a better flavor, but in this test phase, I am using vanilla extract to keep the cost down.

Relative amounts of ingredients between splits (with salt and vanilla removed).

All the differences this week were pretty subtle. Split C was good, but still lacked a bit of flavor. Split E had a bit more flavor, but it was a bit softer. It was still able to hold its shape after piping, but I think this is the limit on how much more butter you can add while still maintaining the strength of the pastry cream. Split F had less flavor than Split C and was also a bit softer. Split G also had less flavor, but it was much thicker and had a grainier texture. Split E had the best flavor, so I will use it as my reference going forward. Next week, I will play with the dairy to see what types of dairy work best.

From the top left going clockwise: Split C, Split E, Split G, and Split F.