Recipe: Vanilla custard sauce (Crème anglaise)

After all pastry creams, Chantilly creams, almond creams (and so on…), welcome to the kingdom of sauces!

Sauces are liquid mixtures cooked on the stove, usually with no thickeners other than egg proteins (so you see the difference with pastry cream which contains cornstarch as thickening agent).

This vanilla custard sauce or “crème anglaise” is the mother of all sauces (and is basically a pastry cream without cornstarch): it can be served hot or cold to accompany any dessert and is the basis for many other preparations in pastry, such as ice cream or Bavarian cream.

Preparing a custard sauce (which, by the way, can be flavoured with chocolate, or any alcohol or spice/herb you want, from ginger to Earl Grey tea), is easy but requires some technique and attention (see notes at the end of the recipe):

It has to be stirred constantly to prevent the egg yolks from curdling
It has to be chilled immediately after cooking to prevent bacteria proliferation
Must be pasteurised at a specific temperature and yet it must not be overcooked

Pasteurisation occurs at 85°C or after keeping the sauce at 82°C for at least a minute, so a thermometer might be required, especially the first times (serious pastry chefs just need a glance to see if the sauce is well cooked, I can’t yet!), but otherwise you can perform the (less-reliable) “back-of-the-spoon” test explained in the recipe.

The eggs have curdled! How to salvage a custard sauce gone wild?

Just strain the sauce into a clean bowl over an ice bath, then whisk like there is no tomorrow!

If this doesn’t help, place the sauce in a blender and process for a few moments (the final sauce will be smooth but probably thinner and less creamy).

Finally, if you find it really difficult to cook a sauce without making the eggs curdle, try cooking it over a bain marie!

Vanilla custard sauce (Crème anglaise)

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Ingredients

250ml	Milk
250ml	Heavy cream
1	Vanilla bean, split
120g	Egg yolks (~ 6 egg yolks)
130g	Granulated sugar

Directions

Heat the milk, cream, half of the sugar and the vanilla bean in a saucepan on medium heat, whisking regularly

Whisk together the egg yolks with the remaining sugar in a mixing bowl

When the milk and cream mixture is boiling, pour it in three times on the yolk mixture, whisking quickly and continuously to prevent curdling

Pour the mixture back into the saucepan on low heat and stir continuously with a spatula. Move the spatula back and forth gently and always in the same direction to avoid incorporating air.

At the beginning the mixture will be very liquid, then the air bubbles will disappear and the custard will become a darker yellow colour.

Continue stirring the custard until it reaches 82°C (pasteurisation temperature). Keep it at 82°C for a couple of minutes. In any case, the custard temperature should remain below 85°C to prevent the egg yolks from curdling (this means: absolutely DO NOT BOIL it!).
When the custard reaches the correct temperature, it will be sufficiently thickened and will coat the spatula or the back of a spoon.

To avoid using a thermometer, you can perform the finger test. The custard is ready when it is thickened enough to leave a path on the back of a spoon when a finger is drawn across.

Strain the custard into a clean bowl (important: do NOT put it back in the same bowl that contained the raw egg yolk mixture)

Place the bowl with the custard over an ice bath to cool down quickly. Stir with a clean spatula and turn the bowl frequently. Finally cover and keep refrigerated.

Note

The finished sauce should last 3 to 4 days.
Eggs are a potentially hazardous food with a high bacterial content, so they must be pasteurised by keeping the custard at 82°C for 1-2 minutes in this recipe. This will kill all the bacteria in the custard. Any temperature above 85°C is risky as the yolks might start curdling.
The final custard with pasteurised eggs should not be poured in the container that contained the raw eggs, as this would make the pasteurisation useless.
The custard must be chilled quickly to prevent the proliferationof bacteria, which is highest at temperatures between 10°C and 60°C. To do this, prepare an ice bath with ice and cold water.