Pastry Cream, Bouillie, and Cream-Pie Fillings

Along with crème anglaise, pastry cream is one of the most versatile of the dessert maker’s stock preparations. It’s used mainly to fill and decorate cakes and pastries, and is a common reinforcing base for sweet soufflés; in Italy and France it’s even cut into pieces and fried on its own. It must therefore be thick enough to hold its shape at room temperature, and so is stiffened with between 1 and 2 tablespoons flour (or about half that amount of pure starch) per cup liquid/10–20 gm per 250 ml.