Crème anglaise
- Published: 9 Aug 23
- Updated: 18 Mar 24
Crème anglaise is a staple of the French culinary canon and the basis of many other custard recipes. This classic thin custard is much easier to make than you may think, and the flavour comes down to the quality of your ingredients – choose rich, orange yolks for the yellow colour we associate with custard. Should the worst happen, find out what to do if your sauce starts to split in the tips.
Need a plant-based alternative? Check out our silky vegan custard.
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Serves 4 (about 400g) -
Hands-on time 15 min
Nutrition
- Calories
- 363kcals
- Fat
- 31g (18g saturated)
- Protein
- 4.7g
- Carbohydrates
- 16g (16g sugars)
- Fibre
- 0g
- Salt
- 0.1g
delicious. tips
Starting to split? If your custard looks like it might split, quickly remove it from the heat and tip it into a bowl. Sit the bowl over another bowl filled with iced water and use a hand mixer or stick blender to whizz it. The rapidly reduced temperature and blending will help it emulsify and come back together.
Don’t waste it You can use a vanilla pod more than once, even if you’ve scraped the seeds out. Rinse it, then wrap in kitchen paper to store. Use it to infuse another mixture or, once dry, whizz it up with sugar in a food processor to make vanilla sugar.
Next time Try infusing the milk and cream with different flavours instead of vanilla. Herbs and spices such as bay leaves, cinnamon and saffron all work well, or experiment with fig leaves, roasted nuts or coffee.