In case I haven’t mentioned this before, I’m an avid Masterchef Australia viewer. I simply love its 99+ episodes and devour them one by one (and sometimes on repeat). The Northerner isn’t a fan, he claims, but occasionally I catch him catching up on a few episodes that I had binged without him. Go figure.

At Masterchef Australia, the contestants would speak of this ominous “Creme Pat” for ice cremes, tart and choux pastry fillings… and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what they were talking about. Until, that is, one of them took to the stove and prepared a custard-type creme. Creme patissiere, mais oui!

As I’m still experimenting with ice cream recipes (and I had a couple of egg yolks spare from my rhubarb-meringue cake experiment for #LowFodmapGBBO), I too wanted to see if I could whisk up a creme pat sans lactose and gluten that would stand up in the Masterchef kitchen to the best of them. I’m not sure that’s what I ended up doing, but it was certainly delicious and I will make it again and again for fillings, ice creams or simply to spoon out of the saucepan. Don’t judge me.

Ingredients

• 175ml dairy-free milk, e.g. almond milk, lactose free milk
• 2 egg yolks
• 50g maple syrup
• 2 tsp cornflour
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, optional

Instructions

1. Bring the milk to a boil.
2. Whisk the egg yolks, maple syrup and vanilla extract together and bit by bit add the cornflour to avoid clumps.
3. Once the milk has come to boiling point, add to the egg mixture and whisk vigorously until well combined.
4. Return the milk-egg mixture to the saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring continuously, until it thickens.
5. Let the creme cool down before using in any other recipes.