Creme Anglaise

A good creme anglaise is a beautiful thing. This one, with the specs of vanilla bean throughout was fantastic.

From: Daring Baker’s, June 2010 Challenge

I made half of the original recipe below.

Ingredients:

• 6 large egg yolks
• 6 tablespoons sugar
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 vanilla bean, split and the seeds scraped out or 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Directions:

Whisk together egg yolks and sugar until the mixture turns pale yellow.

Combine the milk, cream and vanilla bean in a saucepan and heat on medium high. Bring the mixture to a boil and remove from heat.

Pour about 1/4 of the milk mixture into the egg yolk mixture whisking constantly to avoid cooking the egg yolks. Whisk another 1/4 of the mixture into the egg yolks. Pour the egg yolk/milk mixture into remaining milk in the saucepan. Return to medium heat and cook, stirring constantly until it coats the back of a wooden spoon.

Remove the mixture from the heat and strain into a bowl. Cover and refrigerate until the creme anglaise is chilled, about 2 hours or overnight.

Remove the vanilla bean before serving.