Pastry Cream

Making pastry cream is a basic technique that anyone involved with cooking should master, because pastry cream has so many applications. It is a base for soufflés; it is a filling and flavoring for cakes and fruit tarts; it is used to top Danish or other pastries and is perhaps best known as the filling for Napoleons. In the pastry kitchen, a supply of pastry cream should always be in the refrigerator.

Because pastry cream is made with cornstarch to stabilize the eggs, it is in no d