Easy Blender Creme Anglaise

Instead of standing at the stove whisking away, my Easy Blender Creme Anglaise does its thing while you do other things. Delicious served with fruit, with French toast, poured over cake, or used to make a floating island, this is the easiest crème anglaise recipe you'll ever find.

Save This Recipe! 💌

I'll email this recipe to you, so you can come back to it later, plus you'll get great new recipes from me every week!

I agree to be receive new recipes from But First We Brunch

Also known as an English Cream, or a pouring custard, my Easy Blender Creme Anglaise is the perfect recipe for anyone who want to tackle this classic pastry sauce, but has been afraid of all the talk of curdling, of standing at the stove whisking, hoping your cream and eggs don't scorch the bottom of the pan... it can be a lot. My recipe is not.

I have found that using my high speed blender, one that can run for about 5 minutes (see more below), I can turn something intimidating into a great basic recipe that is just as good, if not better, than one made while standing over the stove.

You might be asking, why should I make a creme anglaise? Until you've tried it on french toast, or chocolate cake, or even standing in for maple syrup and drenching your buttermilk pancakes, you just don't know what you're missing. The vanilla infused cream just makes everyday breakfast or brunch feel like an occasion.

❤️ What you'll love about this recipe

• Easy - After you heat the milk and cream with the vanilla, you just let the blender do all the work.
• Quick - 5 minutes to heat your milk mixture and 5 minutes in the blender. I mean...
• Versatile - Creme Anglaise is one of the most versatile sauces in the pastry kitchen. It is wonderful served over chocolate cake, with french toast, and as the base for of ice cream. It is also a creamy contrast to my strawberry crepes! 
• Flexible - As purely amazing as creme anglaise is on its own, you can flavor this any way you want. Add cinnamon, play with different extracts. Have some fun!

Ingredients

It's absolutely amazing to me that we can make such delicious things with such basic ingredients. If this is your first time making any kind of creme anglaise recipe, you've come to the right place!

See recipe card below for quantities.

Substitutions

This is a classic sauce in the pastry kitchen, and other than the ratios, most recipes are the same for a reason. Here are a few safe ways you can change things up and still get a silky smooth sauce.

• Vanilla bean - You can substitute the vanilla bean with ½ teaspoon vanilla bean paste.
• Eggs - This recipe uses large eggs. You can use extra large eggs without changing the quantity. If you have medium eggs, increase the quantity to four. If you have small eggs, use five.
• Milk and cream - Do you even know why half and half is called half and half? I swear I was like in my 30's before I knew. It is made of half heavy cream and half whole milk. So, short story long, if you have half and half, use that in place of both the cream and the milk. (p.s. if you want super creamy creme anglaise, use all heavy cream, no milk. Live the dream.
• Nondairy options - Yes, you can make creme anglaise with non-dairy alternatives. One problem: you would have to run your blender for much longer, as much as 10 to 20 minutes, to get the same amount of thickness, and no blender is going to like that. If using a non-dairy alternative, I would definitely find a stovetop recipe instead.

Variations

Although I think that this easy blender creme anglaise is perfect just the way it is, I know we all love to play with flavors. Here are a few ideas for you:

• Citrus - Add strips of orange or lemon zest to your cream mixture along with half a teaspoon of orange extract (or lemon).
• Red velvet - Add about an ounce of chopped bittersweet chocolate, or a tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa powder, to your creme mixture, along with a couple of drop of red food coloring.
• Creme brulee - This luscious dessert is nothing more than a baked creme anglaise custard. It's a whole thing that I won't describe here, but Ina Garten's Crème Brulee technique will never let you down.

Equipment

Making my simple creme anglaise takes about 5 minutes of continuous blending, and most inexpensive blenders cannot run that long and hard without overheating. A Vitamix blender is powerful enough, and designed well enough, to run continuously and to keep those ingredients hot enough to cook the eggs and thicken your Creme Anglaise. But dang are they expensive. A base model runs anywhere from $500 up to thousands. Of dollars. Hard no.

So, can I use my old black and decker blender to make my vanilla sauce? Unfortunately, standard blenders don't have the power or the ability to run at high speed for long enough to cook the eggs and thicken the custard so that it coats the  back of the spoon. Same with an immersion blender, and my portable blender will only run for 30 seconds at a time, and won't go more than 8 pulses at a time.

While I cannot make make myself justify the expense of a $500 (or more) Vitamix, and the others choices aren't strong enough, I pampered myself with my equally powerful, and more affordable, NuWave blender. At $250, it is an option I can afford, and as you can see from my pictures, it gets the job done.

Instructions

Other than heating your mixture of milk and cream with a vanilla pod, there’s just not a lot to do to get this sauce to a silky texture. If you penciled this in for a long term project, you just freed up a whole block of time!

• Start by heating your cream mixture: Combine milk and cream in heavy medium saucepan. Scrape vanilla bean seeds into the mixture and toss in the bean as well.
• Bring your milk mixture to boil. (It needs to be at least 180°F in order to cook the sauce in the blender.) Remove from heat. Strain into a cup with a pouring spout and discard the vanilla pod.

Step 1: Place egg yolks in your high speed blender.

Step 2: Add sugar and cornstarch (if using) to the egg yolks.

Step 3: Blend eggs and sugar until completely combined, about 30 seconds, stopping and scraping the sides of the blender as needed. With the blender running on medium speed, gradually add hot cream mixture into the egg mixture.

Step 4: Let the blender run continuously for 5 minutes. 

Step 5: Check the sauce consistency. It should coat the back of a spoon and, if you run you finger through the sauce on the spoon, it should leave a distinct line. 

Step 6: Strain your vanilla custard sauce into bowl or jar. Place the jar into a medium bowl containing ice water (an ice bath) to stop the cooking process and prevent the eggs from scrambling.

Cool with plastic wrap touching the surface of the custard to prevent a "skin" from forming. Transfer to a clean, dry container with a lid and store in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. Serve with fruit, cake (chocolate cake and creme anglaise is transformative), and my favorite way - all over my French Toast!

Recipe FAQs

Recipes that would love some custard