Crème pâtissière, perhaps known better in English speaking countries as pastry cream, is a delicious and rich egg custard that provides the filling for a variety of pastries. You may find crème pâtissière substituted for whipping cream in cream puffs or éclairs, or it may fill the center of a cake. Though the traditional crème pâtissière is vanilla flavored, you’ll find various Internet and cookbook recipes for chocolate, rum, lemon or coffee variants.

Pastry cream may sometimes be called Bavarian cream, and the recipes are similar. The main difference is that most Bavarian cream recipes tend to add gelatin, producing slightly firmer custard. Crème pâtissière tends to be more like whipping cream—though depending upon the recipe, it may also be firm. Instead of using gelatin, crème pâtissière tends to get its thickness from either flour or cornstarch. Cornstarch usually produces thicker custard.

The basic ingredients of crème pâtissière are flour, (or cornstarch), milk, eggs, sugar and flavorings. The ingredients, save the eggs, are cooked over low heat until they thicken slightly. Longer cooking time can make a thicker sauce, but you have to be very careful not to burn the pastry cream. Some cookbooks recommend making the crème pâtissière over a double boiler to better control heat. Once the ingredients are cooked, eggs are added, one at a time, and beaten vigorously.

Adding the eggs is a process that requires care. If you don’t beat them in thoroughly, you can end up scrambling the egg over the hot custard, leaving small lumps in the pastry cream. You do have to add the eggs while the mixture is still hot, otherwise the eggs will remain uncooked, providing an easy path to food poisoning if you use unpasteurized eggs.

Once you have incorporated the eggs into the crème pâtissière, the mixture is chilled. You can however, use it as a hot custard sauce over fruit, brownies or a simple cake, as a dessert if you’d like. Most often, it is used chilled in various pastries. Something important to note about food safety and pastry cream is that any dessert you make with it should be kept refrigerated. It’s fine to bring out these desserts to serve them, but don’t let any leftovers sit out. Since they contain a large amount of milk, they can spoil easily.

Beyond the above precautionary tips, use your imagination when adding crème pâtissière to recipes. You can pipe it into doughnuts or cupcakes, serve it alone with fruit, or use it in various luscious pastries like napoleons. A particularly delicious version of pastry cream is rum custard, often used in Italian dishes. One pastry that you may be able to find in Italian American bakeries is the fedora, a chocolate cake soaked in rum, and layered with rum Crème pâtissière; you can use artificial rum if you don’t consume alcohol. The Italians may also flavor pastry cream with Marsala wine, which adds a very interesting and unusual taste to the custard, and resembles a thick zabaione.