Crème Anglaise (Vanilla Sauce)
Crème anglaise (vanilla sauce) is a light pouring custard, perfect over desserts or fresh fruit. It's made with a combination of sugar, egg yolks and hot milk/cream. I was surprised how fast this dessert sauce was to make-- in less than 20 minutes! It's perfect to pour over my homemade bread pudding recipe. I used fresh vanilla beans, but you can use pure vanilla extract as a substitute.
Servings 12 servings
Calories 149kcal
Ingredients
- 1 cup cream heavy cream or half and half, any combination
- 1 1/2 cups whole milk
- 1/2 cup sugar divided
- 1 vanilla bean split lengthwise and scraped, or 1 Tbsp pure vanilla extra
- 6 egg yolks
Instructions
Prepare an ice bath:
- In a large bowl, fill about halfway with lots of ice cubes. Nestle a smaller bowl inside. Set a fine mesh sieve over the bow. This will be used to strain and cool the custard.
Make the sauce:
- In a medium heavy bottomed saucepan add the cream, milk, 1/4 cup sugar, vanilla pod and beans (or pure vanilla extract).
- Simmer the mixture over medium heat until the mixture starts to bubble around the edge of the pan (about 2 minutes) Be careful not to let it boil. Remove from the heat and let stand for 20 minutes to allow the vanill flavor to infuse.
- In the meantime, whisk the egg yolks with remaining 1/4 cup of sugar in a medium bowl.
- Carefully and slowly, ladle some of the hot cream mixture into the egg yolk mixture, all the while swiftly whisking to combine (tempering the eggs). Add another ladle of the infused milk to the eggs until the egg mixture is warm to the touch.
- Pour the tempered cream and egg mixture into the remaining cream in the saucepan, then return the pan to the heat.
- Continue to cook over medium heat while constantly stirring until the custard coats the back of a spoon, about 5 to 7 minutes.
- Once the custard has thickened, remove from the heat and strain through a fine mesh sieve into a medium bowl to remove any lumps and the vanilla pod.
- Place the custard in an ice bath to cool it down quickly and prevent overcooking.
- Once cooled, cover and store in the fridge in an airtight container for up 4 days. Serve with pies, crisps and cobblers.
Notes
Recipe slightly adapted from Bigger Bolder Baking