A dessert staple whether for using as filling or for simple licking off a spoon, from GialloZafferano; Italy’s number one food website.
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Hi GialloZafferano viewers and welcome to our kitchen. Today we’ll be making chocolate pastry custard. This is a very rich custard that can be eaten by the spoonful or used to fill pastries—sponge cake for example…or even beignets or éclairs. It’s important to use very fresh ingredients of a good quality. Let’s see what we’ll need.
• Two-thirds a cup (125 g) of sugar
• ½ a vanilla pod
• just over 3 tbsp of flour (20 g)
• two tbsp (20 g) of cornstarch
• 3 and a half ounces (100 g) of chocolate
• one half cup (125 g) of egg yolk
• one cup (250 ml) of fresh whole milk
• And one cup (250 ml) of fresh heavy cream
Let’s make our chocolate custard.
First of all, put the milk and cream into a pot over a low heat. Next, take your vanilla pod, slice it open, and scrape out the seeds using the tip of a non serrated knife. Add the seeds and the empty pods to the milk. Bring this to a simmer.
While you’re waiting, add the sugar to a bowl and to this add the yolks, mix together, and after add the flour and the cornstarch which you should sift in to avoid clumps. Mix it together to get an even mixture without lumps.
The cream has come to a simmer, now take out the vanilla pod. Add the hot cream little by little to the egg mixture. Do this slowly to keep the egg from curdling.
Now that all of the cream has been mixed into the eggs, put the whole mixture back into the pot and bring it to the simmer. The heat must be on very low and you should mix it nearly constantly to keep the eggs from scrambling. Once the mixture has thickened, you can take it off of the heat.
And now you can see that our custard has gotten good and thick. Now, while it’s still hot add the chocolate which should be finely chopped, and mix it quickly to melt it in.
Now that the chocolate custard is finished, you’ll want it to cool as quickly as possible. Pour it into an oven dish, spread it out and cover it in plastic wrap which should actually touch the custard, and place it in the fridge to cool. Make sure the wrap adheres to all of the custard to prevent a skin from forming in the fridge. Now it’s ready to cool for about an hour.
Once it’s cooled, the chocolate custard is ready to be used like we mentioned before. I’ve used it for beignets. From Sonia and GialloZafferano, bye and see you next time.