Pastry Cream!

It would be an understatement to say that I have thoroughly enjoyed Alton Brown's new book Good Eats: The Early Years. I have been reading sections of it every night since I got it; digesting all the wonderful nuggets of information thoughtfully placed on it's pages. It is truly a must have for any Good Eats fan, Alton fan, food fan, or really anyone! It's just that good. The book covers the first eighty episodes of Good Eats and is chock full of recipes, fun facts, trivia, and good ol' cooking know-how. So far, I only have one complaint; where's the Stove-top Mac & Cheese?

My excitement for the book grew to an even higher level yesterday when I was flipping through the pages and saw a recipe for pastry cream. Pastry cream? I don't remember that recipe on Good Eats. I turned to the page prior and saw that it was grouped with the recipes from the Choux Shine episode. "No way!" I yelled as I realized what I was seeing. In the actual episode, after Alton makes a batch of eclairs and cream puffs, he tells the viewer to use a pudding mix for the filling. Pudding mix? That doesn't sound like AB. Why would he tell us to use pudding mix? As it turns out, they did not have time to include the pastry cream recipe in the episode and he goes on to say that it really deserves an episode all to itself.

So, why am I so happy to have this recipe for pastry cream? I guess I don't really know. Maybe it's because I felt like the recipe was incomplete. I'm Just Here for More Food doesn't even have a recipe for pastry cream in it. It could be also that I didn't know that the name of the stuff that fills the eclairs is called pastry cream. I was looking for custard and pudding recipes, I didn't know to look for pastry cream. It may also be because I made eclairs a couple weeks ago and my pastry cream turned out lumpy. I didn't really use a recipe because I couldn't find one and just made it on the fly, so I really have only myself to blame. But now my eclair recipe arsenal is complete! Look out world!