Air eclairs, crispy wafer rolls, Napoleon cake - all these sweets, familiar to everyone since childhood, are related by custard. Possessing his recipe, you can prepare delicious desserts of French cuisine - profiteroles, croquembush cake and Paris-Brest bagel. In this article we will tell you how to cook homemade custard. Eclair blanks can be bought at the supermarket. But to make your treat even tastier, we will also reveal the secret of making custard dough. Read and try to repeat to please your loved ones with homemade cakes and cakes. You will surely succeed!
Custard cakes
The filling for them can be different: oil or protein cream, condensed milk. Choux pastry balls can also be stuffed with salted cottage cheese or meat and serve them as an appetizer to the broth. But the dough for eclairs is always made according to the same recipe. Sometimes it is allowed to replace water with milk. The dough does not require any yeast or baking powder. Eclairs rise by themselves in the baking process, forming cavities that can be filled with ice cream or cream. The profiteroles can be folded with a pyramid and caramelized. Then you get croquembush. Eclairs and Paris-Brest differ from profiteroles only in form. Custard cakes are baked in the form of oblong ovals with curls. Sometimes they begin with whipped cream, condensed milk, but usually use custard. He does not allow the test to quickly harden. So, before we take custard for custard cakes, let's bake the pieces themselves.
Cooking dough
The name itself suggests that the flour should be steamed. In a small saucepan, put one hundred grams of butter, add salt on the tip of the knife and pour a faceted glass of water. You can replace it with the same amount of milk. As soon as our mixture reaches a boil, turn off the heat and immediately pour a glass of flour, stirring the other hand with a wooden (this is a prerequisite) spoon in a saucepan. We work until the dough begins to lag behind the walls of the dishes with a ball. When it cools down a bit, change the wooden spoon to a mixer with a special nozzle. Drive four eggs one at a time into the dough. Knead until a homogeneous mass is formed. Grease a baking sheet with margarine or cover with baking paper. We spread the dough with a spoon or using a pastry syringe. Products will greatly increase in size, so they should be planted with a distance of 5-6 centimeters from each other. We bake for 10 minutes at 200 degrees, then reduce the temperature to 180 C and cook for another quarter of an hour, until an attractive tan appears. While the blanks are cooling, prepare a custard for custard cakes. By the way, blanks can be baked for future use. They are stored in sealed containers in the refrigerator for a long time.
Custard: a classic recipe
If in the test we steamed the flour, then for the filling we will prepare a bath of egg yolks. Many of us remember that in the distant years of the Soviet Union, custard was sold in briquettes. Few people have bought this product. Each mistress had in stock her own unique custard recipe. It was cooked with condensed milk, nuts, vanilla, cinnamon, apples. Let us, before delving into all these nuances, consider a regular custard. The classic recipe begins with the fact that we boil half a liter of milk in a saucepan. In another bowl, beat four egg yolks with a glass of sugar, half a bag of vanillin and 50 grams of flour. Cool the milk to a temperature where you can dip your finger into it and not get burned (about 45 degrees). Pour it to the yolks. Put the mixture on fire and bring to a boil. Reduce the flame to a minimum and cook with stirring for 5-10 minutes until thickened.
Custard Butter
This is a variation of the classic recipe. Due to the addition of butter, custard for custard cakes turns out to be lush, well-kept. They can not only stuff eclairs, but also decorate cakes. We’ll also talk about cream for Napoleon. In the meantime, preheat the pan and fry three tablespoons of flour over minimal heat. When it becomes golden pink, turn off the gas. Let cool. Boil two glasses of milk in a saucepan. We also leave to cool. We grind four yolks with 300 grams of sugar and a pinch of vanillin. Gradually add flour and stir so that there are no lumps left. Carefully so that the eggs do not curl, we introduce warm milk. Stir and cook the cream over low heat until boiling. Set aside to cool. In another container, beat one and a half or two packs of softened butter (300-400 g). Add custard in small portions. Knead until smooth. For aroma, you can add a glass of liquor or other flavoring fillers (zest, almond essence, etc.).
Custard with condensed milk
Adding “boiled milk” gives the mass a caramel flavor and helps to keep its shape well, without sifting dough eclairs. In a saucepan, mix a glass of regular milk with a spoonful of sugar. Stir until the crystals are dissolved. Add three tablespoons of flour. Knead until the lumps disappear. We put on a slow fire and cook until the mixture thickens. Cool a little and knead with boiled condensed milk. We determine its amount to your taste. Usually one standard bank leaves. To prevent custard with condensed milk from being too sugary, whip in a separate bowl a glass of culinary cream (35% fat). Knead them with a completely cooled cream. We fill them with eclairs or coat cake cakes.
Custard Chocolate
This aromatic mass can also be served as an independent dessert, laid in portioned bowls and garnished with whipped cream or fresh raspberries. Heat 250 ml of milk in a saucepan and throw half the bar (50 g) of dark bitter chocolate there. Stir until completely dissolved. Grind two yolks with 150 g of sugar to form a foam. Enter a spoonful of flour and potato starch. Pour chocolate milk into this mixture in a thin stream. Stir, put on a slow fire and, stirring regularly, bring to a thickening. Beat one hundred grams of butter with three tablespoons of cocoa. We combine both masses and thoroughly knead the chocolate custard at home. Then we start the eclairs with it. Or we put them in a bowl rinsed with cold water and put in the refrigerator.
Cream without eggs
Vegetarians can also treat themselves to delicious eclairs. And those who, for fear of salmonella, are afraid to eat raw eggs, too. This recipe will allow you to cook custard for custard cakes without a single product of poultry farms and incubators. In half a liter of milk, add two glasses of sugar. Stir and set to boil. Measure out another 160 ml of milk. Pour six tablespoons of flour into it. Beat this mixture with a mixer. Dilute this dough with hot milk and sugar. Put the mixture on medium heat and begin to boil until thickened. During this process, we can add vanillin or other flavors. When the cream reaches the desired consistency, remove it from the stove and cool. Settled for oil. Soften a two-hundred-gram pack and beat with a mixer. Gradually add custard. Knead until smooth.
Protein Custard
It was his children who first of all lick off cakes. If the oil cream holds its shape well, then the protein cream conquers with its airiness. It is good for decorating products, as well as for filling eclairs and wafer tubes. Here's a step-by-step squirrel custard recipe. Pour two hundred grams of sugar and half a teaspoon of citric acid into a saucepan. Pour a hundred milliliters of cold water. Keep on low heat until the first signs of boiling appear. After that, increase the flame and cook the syrup to the state of "soft ball". What does this term mean? If a drop of syrup dipped in cold water does not spread, and you can pick it up and say a ball, then the desired state has been reached. Turn off the fire, cover the saucepan. Begin whipping four chilled proteins. In order to argue and the foam is stable, add a little salt to them. Without ceasing to work as a mixer, portionwise add hot (but not boiling) syrup. We continue to beat for another quarter of an hour, until a fluffy mass is obtained.
Cream for Napoleon
This masterpiece of Soviet cuisine has long become the same indispensable dish on the festive table, like Olivier salad. The classic cake is baked from puff pastry, although some housewives prefer sand cakes. Mostly they make home-made Napoleon with custard, although deviations from the canon also occur here. This filling perfectly layers the cakes - and there should be at least ten of them in a real cake. The only thing the custard lacks is bumps. Rosans and leaflets cannot be fashioned from it to decorate the top of the product. We suggest you make an interesting homemade custard for your Napoleon, the recipe of which includes ground nuts in the number of ingredients. Measure out 15 tablespoons of sugar. Mix them with starch (8 tbsp. L.). Add a handful or two ground kernels of any nuts. Boil half a liter of milk. Reduce the fire to a minimum level. Pour into a saucepan with milk, continuously stirring, with a thin stream of dry mixture. Cook for about five minutes.