This Week’s Obsession: Crème Légère

If your first thought when you saw today’s blog title was, “What the heck is that?”, then gather ‘round, because I’m about to drop some delicious knowledge on you!

First things first, do you know what pastry cream is? (Or maybe you know it by its French name, crème pâtissière?) It's a delectable thickened custard made from boiling milk, sugar, eggs, and vanilla together before adding a starch to reach the correct consistency. When I was taught how to make pastry cream back in pastry school, it was so we could fill cream puffs, fruit tarts, and éclairs with it. Does that help describe what it is? Hopefully that was a yes. 

Now, to make crème légère, let’s talk about the translation of this phrase. Crème should be a pretty easy translation (cream), but what about légère? It’s a French adjective that means ‘light’ or ‘lighten’, as in “a lightened load” or “a light heart”. In this instance, the full phrase translates to “lightened cream”. And the way to make crème légère is by lightening the pastry cream. 

How does one “lighten” pastry cream, you ask? With whipped cream, of course! But not sweetened whipped cream like what we put on top of a slice of pie or on top of those beloved grande-extra strong- extra hot-almond milk-mocha-frappuccinos I know we all secretly order but will never admit to.

It’s actually just heavy cream that has been whipped until fluffy and stable so one can fold it into the pastry cream to create a lighter (read: légère) consistency without sweetening it.

(Side note: you know it’s delicious when you do your obligatory taste test, and then taste test it again, and then taste it a third time before just grabbing a spoon and eating it because it tastes so dang delicious and you should stop but you don’t really want to but then ooops I ate too much and now I don’t have enough to fill all the éclair shells I baked, so maybe I'll just make another batch of crème légère that of course I'll have to taste test and… #chefproblems)

👀

Back to what I was saying... I stress the fact that the whipped cream is not sweetened because that is one of the most popular comments I get regarding my desserts. People are generally pleasantly surprised when they bite into one of my creations and they can taste actual cohesive flavors as opposed to an overwhelming, nondescript sugary sort of taste that you might get from other places. (And they typically squeak it out through a mouthful of pastry.) 😆

Warms your heart, doesn't it?

My response to people who say that is that they should really get into French pastry because the focus in French pastry is flavor, not sweetness. 

So that’s what I’m sharing with you today, a heavenly French pastry full of flavor and a little sweetness: a strawberry éclair. This pretty little pastry uses a classic éclair shell, but instead of piping straight pastry cream through small holes in the bottom and dunking it in chocolate, I sliced the éclair shell on its side and piped my exquisitely made crème légère into the opening, placed a few fresh strawberry slices in the filling, and dusted it with powdered sugar.

I served them at game night and had a few people offer to become my new taste testers, which I am thrilled about! And rest assured that when I finally open my bakery, strawberry éclairs filled with crème légère will be on the menu for sure! 💜

Happy eating, y’all!

If you tried this dessert, or any other desserts in my blog, please share my Facebook or Instagram posts about them and let people know what you think! Mahalo!