brown butter caramel pastry cream

hey hi hello!!

The recipe to follow is gonna be a written adaptation for a riff on my brown butter banana pudding recipe that I shared last summer :)

Was this riffed for banana pudding? of course. Can you use it anywhere you already use pastry cream? yes duh OF COURSE. Use it to fill a donut, a cake, an eclair, litcherallyyyyy anywhere you use pastry cream, of ANY flavor, you can swap out for this version. OR better yet. BETTER. YET. Take the same flavoring techniques and apply them to your own favorite base recipe. Caramelizing the sugar of a pastry cream recipe is not exclusive to this one!! Sometimes, ya don’t need the recipe, you just needed the idea. YA KNOW WHAT I’M SAYING??

To reiterate the sounds of the broken record I am. If you learn techniques, you don’t need a new written recipe every time you go to make something new. (reword this) But, if you know how to make vanilla pastry cream, then you know how to make chocolate pastry cream. If you know how to brown butter and you know how to make pastry cream then you know how to make brown butter pastry cream. if you can make a dry caramel, brown butter and pastry cream??? Then you’ve got… well, brown butter caramel pastry cream. Everything in baking is just a foundational building block for what’s to come. Learn the basics, unlock everything.

Sometimes when I share a new iteration of a recipe, I just copy and paste the direction from the original iteration and make the edits needed for the new tweaked version of the recipe. BUT, sometimes (and I know this would not fly with a majority of the population) I want to write nothing more than “vanilla pastry cream, brown the butter, caramelize half the sugar and proceed as normal”. Because, yeah baby at the end of the day, vanilla pastry cream, chocolate pastry cream, caramel pastry cream, brown butter pastry cream… it’s all the same method with different flavors. Learn how to make one and ya basically know how to make them all.

Then when it comes to putting everything together, it’s not as daunting as it may seem. Think about building a sandwich. For a ham and cheese you have bread + ham + cheese. Could be any bread ya want, ham, and any cheese ya please. To switch it up you could go bread + turkey + swiss. In the grand scheme of things, composing a baked good is the exact same thing. Banana pudding is bananas, a buttery wafer cookie, custard and whipped cream, tons of it. So maybe ya make a version that’s made up of bananas, a crispy little tate cookie, a brown butter custard, tons of whip. Or omg the idea of a tropical banana pudding? A key lime cookie, or maybe just a classic chessman, bananas, a coconut custard and like swirls of passion fruit pulp? Absolute ripper.

ANYWAYS, nuff yappin’, here’s the recipe for the brown butter caramel custard. And im gonna start work shopping that tropical vibe for the next one xx

BROWN BUTTER CARAMEL PASTRY CREAM

*as always a printer friendly, easy to view PDF version of the recipe will be available to paid subscribers at the end of the post ♡ *

TOOLS:

• Digital scale

• Mixing bowls

• Medium saucepan

• Whisk

• Rubber spatula

• Fine mesh sieve

• Immersion blender *optional*

INGREDIENTS:

• 113 grams butter, unsalted

• 2 tablespoons non-fat milk powder

• 100 grams granulated sugar (1)

• 600 grams whole milk

• 1 teaspoon diamond crystal kosher salt

• 50 grams granulated sugar (2)

• 33 grams cornstarch

• 160 grams egg yolks (approx 8 large yolks)

• 2 tablespoons vanilla bean paste

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a medium saucepan heat the 113 grams of unsalted butter over medium heat until melted.

2. Once the butter has melted add in the 2 tablespoons of non-fat milk powder.

3. Cook the butter over medium heat, whisking frequently to keep the milk solids moving. The added solids have a tendency to clump together otherwise. The butter will start to foam, sizzle and steam. Keep whisking as the milk solids begin to brown. The butter will begin to smell nutty and caramelized. The browned butter is ready when the milk solids are deep umber in color and the steaming has stopped. Quickly and carefully, pour the brown butter into a heat proof bowl to cool down. Since we’re adding it back into the final pastry cream, there isn’t a need to cool it down fully.

4. Fill a large bowl with ice water to create an ice batch for the custard when it’s done cooking. The bowl you fill should be larger than the one you strain your custard into.

5. Wash and dry the saucepan from browning the butter. Place the pan over medium heat allowing it to heat up with nothing in it. Once hot, slowly add the 100 grams of granulated sugar (1), 1/3 at a time. Allow each addition of sugar to melt and start to take on a little color before adding the next bit. You’re making a dry caramel here. You can use a rubber spatula to stir the caramel to promote even browning. Once all the sugar has been added take the caramel to a deep amber color. The darker the color the more pronounced the caramel notes will be.

6. Once the sugar is your desired shade of brown, carefully add the 600 grams of whole milk to the pan to deglaze. The caramel may seize, this is totally fine! As the milk comes up to a simmer, it will dissolve. Stir occasionally while the milk comes to just below a simmer.

7. While the milk comes to temp, in a medium bowl combine the 50 grams of granulated sugar (2), 33 grams of cornstarch, 1 teaspoon kosher salt. Whisk to combine and break up any clumps before adding in the 160 grams of egg yolks and 2 tablespoons vanilla bean paste, whisking until everything is homogenous and lightly paled in color.

8. Once the milk is warmed, just below simmering. You’ll temper the caramel milk into the yolk mixture. Carefully ladle a bit of milk into the yolks, whisking to combine to gently bring up the temp of the mixture. Once you’ve added about half of the milk, you’ll be ready to return the mixture to the pot.

9. Slowly add the tempered egg mixture back into the pan with the milk. Whisking to combine.

10. Cook the custard until it begins to thicken and reaches a soft boil (a few slow popping and thick bubbles will form when you stop whisking for a second). Continue whisking during this entire process to avoid scrambling the egg proteins.

11. At this point remove your cream from the heat and strain into a heat safe mixing bowl. This is the final frontier to make sure you don’t have any scrambled eggy bits in your cream. Add your reserved brown butter from earlier and immersion blend until smooth. If you don’t have an immersion blender you can just whisk to combine. The immersion blender leaves you with the most perfect creamy texture. Cover the top of the custard directly with plastic wrap to keep a skin from forming.

12. Place the bowl of custard into the prepared ice bath from earlier. (Alternatively, this can be made a day ahead of assembly. Should this be the move you make, cover directly with plastic wrap and store in the fridge to set)

13. Every 5 or so minutes remove the plastic and agitate the custard to it cools down quickly and evenly. Replace the plastic and repeat until the custard has cooled to about 70F before starting to make your whipped cream.

TOOLS

• Digital scale

• Mixing bowls

• Cutting board

• Chef’s knife

• Rubber spatula

• Small off-set spatula

• Stand or hand mixer

• 9x13 baking dish

INGREDIENTS

• 1 batch of the brown butter caramel pastry cream recipe from above or ya know any pastry cream flavor you want to use here. You’ll be 875 grams total for this batch size

• 450 grams heavy cream

• 250 grams mascarpone cheese

• 200 grams sour cream

• 100 grams dark brown sugar

• 4-5 medium bananas, depends how much ya like bananas

• 1 box of nilla wafers (hold 10 back for crushing over top if you’d like)

Optional, but if you’d like to top your pudding with another layer of whipped cream you’ll also need

• 525 grams heavy cream

• 2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste

• 1/4 teaspoon diamond crystal kosher salt

• 90 grams powdered sugar

DIRECTIONS

1. Once your pastry cream has cooled, you’ll start to prepare your whip.

2. In a large bowl combine 450 grams heavy cream with the 250 grams mascarpone cheese, 200 grams sour cream, and 100 grams dark brown sugar. Using a hand mixer (or stand mixer) whip this until very soft medium peaks form. You don’t want to go too stiff here. The cream should be just thick enough to hold its shape but still fall into itself as a little time passes.

3. Gently fold the entire batch of brown butter caramel pastry cream into the whipped cream in 3 additions.

4. Peel the 4-5 bananas and slice them into about 1/4” thick slices.

5. To the brown butter whip situation add the sliced bananas folding to incorporate before adding in the box of nilla wafers, scant ten wafers. Once again folding until everything is evenly distributed.

6. Dump the pudding into a 9x13” dish. Spreading it out evenly with a small off set spatula.

7. You can stop here and cover with plastic wrap storing in the fridge overnight. But, if you’re popping a lactaid tomorrow might as well get a lil frisky.

8. Whip up another 525 grams of heavy cream with 2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste, 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt and 90 grams of powdered sugar to medium/stiff peaks.

9. Layer the vanilla whip over the banana pudding, spreading it even with an offset spatula.

10. Cover directly with plastic wrap. Store in the fridge overnight (at least 4 hours) to give the wafers a chance to soften and the flavors to develop.

11. Before serving, crush the reserved nilla wafers and sprinkle over top.

12. Enjoy!!