Custard - Custard Variations

Custard Variations

While custard may refer to a wide variety of thickened dishes, technically (and in French cookery) the word custard (crème or more precisely crème moulée, ) refers only to an egg-thickened custard.

When starch is added, the result is called pastry cream (French: crème pâtissière, ) or confectioners' custard, made with a combination of milk or cream, egg yolks, fine sugar, flour or some other starch, and usually a flavoring such as vanilla, chocolate, or lemon. Crème pâtissière is a key ingredient in many French desserts including mille-feuille (or Napoleons) and filled tarts. It is also used in Italian pastry and sometimes in Boston cream pie. Although egg thickens the custard, the effect is minimal, with the majority of thickening resulting from starch. Corn flour or flour thicken at 100 °C and as such many recipes instruct the pastry cream to be boiled. In a traditional custard such as a crème anglaise, where egg is used alone as a thickener, boiling results in the over cooking and subsequent 'curdling' of the custard; however, in a pastry cream, starch prevents this. Once cooled, the amount of starch in pastry cream 'sets' the cream and requires it to be beaten or whipped before use.

When gelatin is added, it is known as crème anglaise collée . When starch is used alone as a thickener (without eggs), the result is a blancmange. In the United Kingdom, custard often refers to a dessert thickened from cornflour (cornstarch) rather than eggs; see custard powder.

After the custard has thickened, it may be mixed with other ingredients: mixed with stiffly beaten egg whites and gelatin, it is chiboust cream; mixed with whipped cream, it is crême légère, .