Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Evening friends,
I am making a layer cake for tomorrow night – bottom chocolate and top vanilla. Customer wants custard or pastry cream as the filling. I have never made one so am looking for a tried and true recipe. I’m guessing it must be quite thick and put on with a bc dam so it doesn’t squish out ?
I’m open to thoughts on flavor too – I’m thinking something rum or amaretto would be yummy!
Thanks!

Hello ShellsBells

Pastry cream is very simple to make, it’s just custard made with fresh ingredients rather than with the powdered stuff. Try this recipe:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/pastry_cream_36417
If you want to flavour it with alcohol, decide how many mls you want to use and reduce your milk by that amount. Once the custard is made, cool it and then add the alcohol. On cooling completely, the custard will become very thick. To loosen it, use a stick blender for mixing it into a smooth thick sauce which you can use as a base for anything you want. For cake filling, just break it up enough so it sits on the cake layer without squishing out, make a buttercream dam to support it. I make big batches and freeeze it on trays, then use as required for different desserts. Really yummy in choux buns and eclaires with lashings of raspberry coulis or any flavour coulis!

Thanks! I looked it up and it seems very easy! What is cornflour though, and are there substitutes?

Cornflour is just another name for cornstarch. If you can’t find either use some all purpose flour but you will need to sieve the custard to rid any lumps. Hope this helps.