What To Do With Leftover Pastry Cream: 10 Options

Last Updated on March 22, 2024 by Lori Walker

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Pastry cream refers to a thick and velvety custard that is commonly utilized as a filling for cream puffs and fruit tarts. It boasts a decadent flavor, often enhanced with chocolate and vanilla.

But what should you do with leftover pastry cream?

There are several ways to use it, but here are our top ten favorite things to do with leftover pastry cream.

Table of Contents

Top 10 Things To Do With Leftover Pastry Cream

1. Make a Trifle

Trifle has colorful layers that only take a few minutes to prepare [1], making it a brilliant dessert for a leftover pastry cream. It is a flexible dessert that works perfectly, even with a few leftovers.

It offers delightfully creamy, luscious, and spongy textures you can make based on your signature version.

2. Try Some Quick Pate Sucree

You can also use a prebaked crust and fill it with the leftover pastry cream. Try the pâte sucrée, a sweet tart dough typically used as pie crust to make classic French desserts.

Its tender, but the sturdy crust can hold pastry cream fillings without crumbling into pieces. But how does Pralines & Cream differ from Butter Pecan?

3. Eat It With A Spoon

Eating the leftover pastry cream is the simplest satisfying thing you can do. Grab a big spoon and enjoy the excess pastry cream after making pastries, pies, or cakes.

It’s similar to vanilla pudding, which may not taste much unless you mix it with chocolate, praline, or butter. But how can you cut the lattice pastry without a lattice cutter?

4. Turn Into Other Types of Cream

Another way is to turn the leftovers into a diplomat cream by combining it with a stabilized whipped cream. It is a delicious mix with a reliable structure that professional bakers use in their baking process.

It is a perfect dessert on its own that is richer than whipped cream and lighter than pastry cream.

Read: Do You Need To Refrigerate Your Boston Cream Donuts?

5. Make It As Oreo or Fruit Dipping

You can now bring out a stored Oreo cookie and use your leftover pastry cream as its dipping sauce. It also works perfectly with any fresh fruit available in the kitchen.

Place the leftover pastry cream in the bowl as a dipping sauce for bananas, oranges, strawberries, or kiwis. Find out how much to charge for strawberries dipped in chocolate here.

6. Make A Fruit Tart

Fruit tarts are stunning desserts consisting of crust, fruits, and pastry cream filling. Your leftover pastry cream can be used as the base for fruit tarts.

“There’s less air and less ice crystals—those are the two things that make ice cream bad when it goes bad. So custard is inherently better.”
– Anthony Carron, Chef

It is highly customizable, and you can choose to top it with any fruit, depending on the season. You can go from grapes, kiwis, citrus fruits, and fresh berries.

7. Make Buttercream

Mixing your leftover pastry cream with butter refers to German buttercream or custard-based buttercream. It works best for people who want a rich buttery frosting.

It has a subtle sweetness you can adjust by adding more vanilla or powdered sugar. You can also incorporate melted chocolate or caramel for more flavors.

Also Read: Does Lemon Go Well With Vanilla?

8. Do Some Eclairs

An éclair is made from an oblong-shaped choux pastry baked until it becomes an almost hollow and airy shell. It was then filled with custard and topped with fondant icing.

It is used for making gougères and cream puffs. Filling it with the leftover pastry cream works best as it could prevent the pastry from getting soggy.

Also Read: How Many Calories Does An Oatmeal Cream Pie Have?

9. Try Some Pastry Cream Ice Cream

Take advantage of your ice cream maker at home and turn the leftover pastry cream into a frozen dessert. Lightly whip the cream into the mixture until it turns smooth and thick.

Read: How Long Can Homemade Ice Cream Stay Good For?

10. Bake A Torta Della Nonna

Torta Della Nonna is a classic Tuscan dessert that means “grandmother’s cake.” It has a sugary pastry top and bottom, a soft vanilla custard center, and a crunchy pine nuts top.

Use the leftover pastry cream as its center filling and bake it for around 45 minutes. Then dust the top with powdered sugar to enjoy this soft creamy dessert better.

Read:

FAQs

Can you freeze leftover pastry cream?

Yes, you can freeze the leftover pastry cream for three to five days if it does not contain cornstarch. The cornstarch tends to lose its consistency during the freezing and thawing process.

Can pastry cream be reheated?

Yes, you can reheat the pastry cream. The French custard pie is an example of boiling the pastry cream on the stovetop and then baking it later with the crust. Check out these ten delicious Boston cream pies here.

Is pastry cream the same as custard?

Yes, pastry cream is the same as custard, but it uses egg and cornstarch as thickening agents. It is a thickened vanilla custard and is mostly used as a filling for desserts like Boston cream pie.

Check out if you can make a premade graham crust here.

How do you store leftover pastry cream?

You can store the leftover pastry cream in the refrigerator. Custard, pumpkin, and leftover buttercream frosting are desserts made with eggs and raw dairy that remain good for a few days in the fridge [2].

Check out these helpful ways to store cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting here.

In A Nutshell

Pastry cream is a simple combination of eggs, milk, sugar, starch, and flavoring, cooked together to make a creamy and thick custard. It has a variety of uses so that you don’t have to worry about any leftovers.

You can use it as a filling to pâte sucrée, éclairs, and Torta Della Nonna or combine it with other baking ingredients to make buttercream and diplomat cream.

You can also turn it into ice cream or grab a big spoon and enjoy it as it is.

References:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jul/11/get-ahead-one-batch-creme-patissiere-custard-four-recipes
https://www.marthastewart.com/1542305/storing-baked-goods-home

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Lori Walker

Lori is a self-taught baker and former owner of a successful bakery. She shares her love for baking through her blog, featuring delicious recipes, baking tips, and a behind-the-scenes look at running a bakery. You can speak with her directly at [email protected].