This Chocolate Pastry Cream is the most delicious chocolate cream, perfect to use as a choux pastry and cake filling or dessert topping. Packed with dark chocolate, the classic French Chocolate Crème Pâtissière is a truly decadent cream you will even want to eat with a spoon!
Place the milk and vanilla in a medium size saucepan and turn on low heat.
In the meantime, separate the egg yolks from the whites. Place the yolks in a heat-proof mixing bowl along with the sugar and whisk for a minute. Keep the egg whites in the fridge for another recipe.
Add the Cornstarch and whisk it until smooth.
Once the milk has started to simmer, pour it over the egg mixture while continuously whisking. When smooth, pour it all back inside the saucepan.
Put back on the stove and cook on very low heat for about 5 minutes or until the custard starts to thicken (see note 1). Make sure to continuously stir while the cream is cooking. Once the cream starts to thicken, cook for another 30 seconds to a minute then remove from the heat (see note 2).
Away from the heat, add the finely chopped chocolate or couverture chocolate pistols (see note 3). Leave for 2 minutes to melt then stir until the chocolate has completely melted and you get a smooth, thick chocolate pastry cream. Alternatively, use an immersion blender (without too much movement to avoid creating air bubbles) to incorporate the melted chocolate in the pastry cream.
Transfer the pastry cream in a clean bowl or shallow pan such as a brownie pan (see note 4). Cover with plastic wrap touching the surface of the cream and place in the fridge to chill and set for at least 2 hours. Keep in the fridge until ready to use.
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Notes
It will take a few minutes for the cream to thicken on low heat, but this is to make sure you do not end up with lumps. If cooked on a higher heat, the eggs might start to coagulate too quickly which will create a lumpy cream with cooked egg bits in it.
The time required to cook the cream is dependant on the quantity of milk used and the exact temperature of your stove. It should reach 82 degrees Celsius (180 degrees Fahrenheit) to be fully cooked.
Only use proper Cooking Chocolate (and not eating chocolate or chocolate chips) or the cream might be grainy. It is important to add the chocolate into small pieces so that it melts more easily with the residual heat from the cream.
Using a shallow baking pan to cool down the cream will make it cool down and set much more quickly than in a bowl where the layer of cream is thicker. Cooling the cream more quickly will also reduce the risk of bacteria development in the cream.