How to make muslin cream or crème mousseline. Perfect sweet cream to fill your desserts

For 4 0.5 €/pers. 254 kcal/100g

This cream, of French origin, is a derivative of the famous pastry cream , it is an essential basic preparation in classic recipes, which is generally used to fill or cover sweets. It cannot be said that it is difficult to make, but we must take into account some details to obtain a perfect muslin.

Depending on the ingredients used, we can talk about a wide variety of recipes. But we could say that the classic formula  consists of a cooked mixture of milk and/or liquid cream, sugar, egg yolks and cornstarch or cornstarch.

To make a mousseline, we start with a basic pastry cream and enrich it by adding a considerable amount of butter. The fat of the butter when it cools makes this cream more consistent, making it perfect for filling all types of desserts. You just have to let it cool in your pastry bag and create decorative effects with different nozzles on your desserts .

If we manage to combine them in the right amount, we will obtain an exquisite base that is very creamy and smooth, but at the same time with the necessary consistency so that we can spread it easily or use it with a pastry bag. Perfect for filling crispy puff pastries , choux dough or Karpatka cake , Genoese sponge cakes, fried canes, fritters, cookies, macarons or in classic French recipes such as crêpes , Paris-Brest cake or traditional Tropézienne cake .

Preparation of muslin cream

1. As we have mentioned, the base of the muslin is a pastry cream, and for this the milk must be infused. To do this, we boil the milk together with the vanilla , the lemon peel (without any white) and half of the sugar. As soon as it starts to boil, turn it off and cover with film so that it can infuse, between 15 minutes and half an hour.
2. In another bowl, beat the rest of the sugar with the egg yolks until we manage to dissolve the sugar and it becomes a slightly pale color. Next, we add the cornstarch and continue beating. Finally, we strain the infused milk with a fine sieve.
3. Once the milk is strained, we pour everything into the same saucepan and put it back over low heat until it thickens, stirring constantly, and gains consistency. (Keep in mind that when it is hot it will always be more liquid).
4. Now we are going to weigh it to calculate half its weight and add that same amount of butter to the cream that will still be hot, and we continue beating until the butter is completely incorporated. Once achieved, transfer the cream to a flat container and let it cool to approximately 20º, covered with film.
5. Finally we beat the rest of the butter to obtain a cream. On the other hand, we beat the cream again, which should already be cold, and we add the other butter until we get a uniform, fluffy and soft cream.

As it is a cream that needs to be cooled, it must be made a few hours before or even the night before.

Tips and uses for your muslin cream

• As we mentioned at the beginning, there are many recipes for muslin cream depending on its ingredients. Thus, to the traditional cream, we can add flavors such as vanilla , coffee, praline , fruits, we can even add bitter almond, rum or brandy…
• Another alternative is chocolate muslin . So we would have to add 100 g of melted dark chocolate once the cream has thickened. You can also give it a touch of mocha , adding instant coffee along with the chocolate.
• Almond or hazelnut praline muslins are very popular.
• Muslin cream has multiple uses. You can use it in all desserts where you use pastry cream, but since it is much more consistent, you can also use it for: Any sponge cake, filling puff pastries, making beautiful decorations with the pastry bag or filling all types of sweets, cakes, tartlets, cupcakes … Imagination to the power.