Chocolate custard

The creme patisserie recipe that I had used for the profiteroles that I made for E's birthday had not made enough to fill all of the choux pastry I had. To use them up and also not waste any of the egg yolks E had given me I made more filling! This time around I wanted a chocolate filling and I ended up using a mixture of the two creme patisserie recipes (Justin North and Simon Bryant) that I have used previously to get the right mix.

350mL milk
50mL double cream (no gelatine)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 egg yolks (from 59g eggs)
80g caster sugar
40g corn flour
100g dark chocolate, chopped

Put the milk, cream and vanilla into a heavy-based sacuepan and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and leave to infuse for 5-10 minutes.

Put the egg yolks and sugar in an electric mixer and whisk to the riboon stage. Fold in the sifted flour and cornflour.

Pour a third of the hot liquid onto the egg mixture and whisk gently to combine. Pour back into the saucepan with the rest of the hot milk and cook gently over a moderate heat for about 5 minutes, whisking all the time. The custard will thicken to a stiff and glossy smooth paste.

Add the chopped chocolate and whisk. The chocolate should melt and mix into the custard.

Remove from the heat and stand the pan in a sink of iced water. Whisk vigorously to beat out any lumps.

Notes

• For the second round of profiteroles I topped them with melted white chocolate. I thought that would be a nice contrast to the chocolate custard filling


• I have never used vanilla beans. Both recipes call for vanilla beans rather than extract. Maybe one day I will give it a shot

I did not manage to take any photos of the finished profiterole. The custard was made late on the night before Australia Day and I filled the pastry on the morning before we jumped onto the boat.