Creme Anglaise (English Cream)

Creme Anglaise is a very light, fluid, sugary sauce, vanilla based, ideal to pour over brownies, crumbles, or anything a bit too chocolaty.

It's very fast to prepare, but it requires a bit of time to cool down afterwards so make it while your cake is in the oven!

It takes:

• 15 min to make
• 15-30 min in the fridge

You need:

• a bowl
• a wooden spatula
• a pot

Ingredients:

• 0.5L (17 fl.oz) milk
• 75g (1/3 cup) sugar
• 4 egg yolks
• vanilla extract

Recipe:

• Heat up the milk and the vanilla in the pot. Stay by constantly. When the milk starts foaming remove it from the heat. Note that you should stir often or the milk will attach at the bottom of the pot. Turn the heat down to low heat. For example, my settings go from 1 to 8, so I turn the heat down to 2.

• While the milk heats up, whisk the yolks and the sugar in the bowl until the mix whitens and becomes a bit foamy.

• Pour little by little the hot milk in the bowl with the sugar/yolk mix. Stir it gently.

Tip: If the milk boiled a bit and that you have burned residue at the bottom of the pan, make sure to remove them. If some of these brown residue are in the milk, then just filter it with a tea strainer.

• Pour the mix back into the pan and put the pan back onto the now slightly warm heating plate.

• Allow the cream to thicken by stirring constantly.

Tip: the cream is ready when it coats the spoon. Pass your finger on the spoon and if the cream doesn't flow into the track of your finger the creme is ready.

• Pour the cream in a bowl.
• Put the bowl in the fridge for 15 to 30min (or longer)

Note that the creme will thicken as it gets colder, however keep in mind that this should be a pretty liquid cream.

You can keep it in the fridge for 2 or 3 days easily.

• When it's cool, pour it on the cake of your choice and enjoy!