# Tell me about custard filling recipes, please! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 26, 2008, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-custard-filling-recipes-please/450627 "2008-05-26T06:31:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Leiko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Leiko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leiko)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2008, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-custard-filling-recipes-please/450627/1 "2008-05-26T06:31:20Z")
Tomorrow is my brother’s birthday. I’ve just baked a two-layer chocolate cake for him that I’ll eventually cut in half to end up with four layers. The resulting split surfaces are getting a good smear of raspberry preserves, and the very top will get a chocolate glaze. But I want the very middle to have a custard or Bavarian cream-type filling. Actually, that’s what my mom wants, but I agree with her that it sounds like a really good idea, sort of like the doughnut cakes from Helena’s doughnut shop The Donut Hole.\* I’m pretty good at making lemon curd, and I’ve made puddings and custards before, but never one for a cake filling. I know I want a recipe that stays pretty thick at cake-serving temperatures, and isn’t too sweet, without a too-prominent vanilla flavoring. I want it support the flavor of the chocolate, not overwhelm it. The plan right now is to grab a random recipe off the internet for the filling, but I just realized that random recipes just aren’t as nice as a recipe that is Doper-approved. So does anyone have a favorite recipe for a thick custard or Bavarian creme? \*I don’t think I’ve ever written the word “doughnut” three times in one sentence before, with variant spelling to boot! ---
**Author:** ![jellyblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e480ec/32.png) [@jellyblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jellyblue)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2008, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-custard-filling-recipes-please/450627/2 "2008-05-26T07:22:06Z")
I would recommend looking for recipes for “pastry cream” rather than custard or pudding- with that many layers it’s going to smush out the sides pretty badly under the weight of the cake. Pastry cream has some cornstarch in it, so it’s a bit thicker. Still, you may want to make a recipe of buttercream and pipe a sort of a dam around the outer edge of each cake layer and then fill in with the pastry cream. I speak from experience: it will keep your cake from listing dramatically to one side much like the Tower of Pisa! Are you frosting the whole thing? Put a thin coating of buttercream frosting all over the cake and pop it in the freezer for about an hour (this is called a “crumb coat”). Then take it out and frost it all over, but more thickly this time. My cakes got a lot better and more beautiful when I started sucking it up and making twice the amount of frosting I thought I’d need. Good luck with your cake, let us know how it comes out! It sounds yummy… ---
**Author:** ![Leiko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Leiko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leiko)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2008, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-custard-filling-recipes-please/450627/3 "2008-05-26T07:50:55Z")
Pastry cream. Check! I’ll be Googling that come morning if no recipes are posted in the thread by the time I wake up. There won’t be real frosting on the cake, just some chocolate glaze thrown on the top and allowed to dribble down the sides all willy-nilly. (If you can’t have _something_ be all willy-nilly on your birthday, it’s just no fun at all, I think!) It’s not applicable to the laziness that is a puddle of chocolate glaze, but crumb coat is one of the few cake-making tricks I actually know (the list stands at “cool it before you frost it”, crumb coat, toothpicks as markers for the half-way up point of a layer that’s being split, dowels to support large cakes, and poking holes to pour over a glaze or caramel) but thank you for the advice anyway! I’m really hoping the cake turns out delicious; it’s the first cake I’ve ever actually turned out of pan, or will split, fill, and glaze. I usually just make chocolate cakes with chunks of ginger or chocolate, that are more like sweet rich quick breads than an actual cake.