Is it really necessary to cream egg yolks?
Let’s try and answer a question that crops up in cookery and patisserie, even if it verges on the existential: do the egg yolks in a custard recipe really need to be beaten until pale, or not?
44 K 4.3/5 (21 reviews)
Last modified on: February 28th 2018
Is it really necessary to cream egg yolks?
You might already have noticed in many recipes combining egg yolks and sugar, how they insist that these must be beaten (or “creamed”) together until pale.
For instance, in a traditional real custard (crème anglaise) or confectioner's custard (french pastry cream) recipe, you will find it comes up frequently: first you are instructed to boil the milk, then to beat the egg yolks and sugar together for a good while until the mixture turns pale. This happens as the beating incorporates air into the mixture in the form of tiny bubbles, which create the paler colour.
Then we pour the hot milk into the mixture and mix well. Result: a liquid (milk+yolks+sugar) and, most noticeably, a lot of froth, which we don’t need, from all the bubbles created earlier.
This froth will drive you up the wall for the whole time you are trying to cook the custard, as it hides the surface and only disappears when the custard starts to thicken. In a word, this froth on the top is a pain!
So, what can we do about it? Well, that’s easy: it's better just to mix the egg yolks and sugar briefly with a whisk or soft spatula, then continue with the recipe. Beating the yolks for longer until pale doesn’t add anything significant to the recipe.
While we’re on the subject, here are answers to a few basic questions:
- Does beating the egg yolks until pale serve any purpose ? No.
- Will it make any difference to the texture in my recipe if the yolks are beaten or not? No (I tested this by making a confectioner’s custard without creaming the yolks: impossible to tell the difference in either taste or texture).
- Will beating the yolks or not make a difference to how the recipe tastes? No, none whatsoever.
- Will beating the yolks until pale make any real difference to my recipe? No, other than making it take longer, for nothing…
In other words, when a recipe tells you to beat the egg yolks until pale, you can quite happily dispense with this step, as it serves no useful purpose, other than wasting your time and creating annoying froth while you cook the custard.
To sum up: Is it necessary to the cream egg yolks when making a custard? The clear answer is no. In fact, it serves no purpose in the vast majority of recipes (I’ve been looking for an exception where it might be useful, but not found one).
PS: Just one slight damper on what I’ve just said, chipped in by my son Nicholas, who is a professional cook (and his dad’s pride and joy!). He tells me that he systematically creams his egg yolks because that’s how he was taught. The froth, which is admittedly annoying, disappears just as the custard is cooked, so this is a pretty good indicator that it’s time to stop the cooking. Now that makes sense…
For instance, in a traditional real custard (crème anglaise) or confectioner's custard (french pastry cream) recipe, you will find it comes up frequently: first you are instructed to boil the milk, then to beat the egg yolks and sugar together for a good while until the mixture turns pale. This happens as the beating incorporates air into the mixture in the form of tiny bubbles, which create the paler colour.
Then we pour the hot milk into the mixture and mix well. Result: a liquid (milk+yolks+sugar) and, most noticeably, a lot of froth, which we don’t need, from all the bubbles created earlier.
This froth will drive you up the wall for the whole time you are trying to cook the custard, as it hides the surface and only disappears when the custard starts to thicken. In a word, this froth on the top is a pain!
So, what can we do about it? Well, that’s easy: it's better just to mix the egg yolks and sugar briefly with a whisk or soft spatula, then continue with the recipe. Beating the yolks for longer until pale doesn’t add anything significant to the recipe.
While we’re on the subject, here are answers to a few basic questions:
- Does beating the egg yolks until pale serve any purpose ? No.
- Will it make any difference to the texture in my recipe if the yolks are beaten or not? No (I tested this by making a confectioner’s custard without creaming the yolks: impossible to tell the difference in either taste or texture).
- Will beating the yolks or not make a difference to how the recipe tastes? No, none whatsoever.
- Will beating the yolks until pale make any real difference to my recipe? No, other than making it take longer, for nothing…
In other words, when a recipe tells you to beat the egg yolks until pale, you can quite happily dispense with this step, as it serves no useful purpose, other than wasting your time and creating annoying froth while you cook the custard.
To sum up: Is it necessary to the cream egg yolks when making a custard? The clear answer is no. In fact, it serves no purpose in the vast majority of recipes (I’ve been looking for an exception where it might be useful, but not found one).
PS: Just one slight damper on what I’ve just said, chipped in by my son Nicholas, who is a professional cook (and his dad’s pride and joy!). He tells me that he systematically creams his egg yolks because that’s how he was taught. The froth, which is admittedly annoying, disappears just as the custard is cooked, so this is a pretty good indicator that it’s time to stop the cooking. Now that makes sense…
Lasts posts
Who's making the croissants?
When you look at a bakery from the outside, you naturally think that in the bakery, the bakers make the bread, and in the laboratory, the pastry chefs make the cakes. It's very often like that, with each of these professions having quite different ways of working, but sometimes there's also one...November 23th 2025558
Oven height
When we put a dish or cake in the oven, we naturally tend to put it on the middle shelf, and that's what we usually do. But in some cases, this position and height can be a little tricky, so let's find out why.October 8th 20252,1095
The importance of sieving
In recipes that use a fine powder (flour, powdered sugar, etc.), you'll often see the advice to sift before using it. To sift is to pass the powder in question through a sieve (a very fine strainer) before incorporating it into your recipe. It's often advice, but is it really useful?September 3rd 20257,1603
The grease spray
As soon as you have something in a recipe that sticks to the mold, the question always arises as to how difficult it is to remove from the mold. There's nothing more frustrating than breaking your cake when unmolding it, because part of it has stuck in the mold. The classic way to avoid this is...August 26th 20256,6745
Cake moulds
When we make a cake, or a cake of the same rectangular shape, we usually take out our usual mould and tell ourselves that the recipe is anyway "for a cake", but is it really that simple?August 25th 20256,7155
Other pages you may also like
Coarsely chopped herbs
Although we are in the middle of winter as I write these lines, you should not hesitate to make salads at this time, it is actually quite simple, rather fast, and so pleasant. A while ago, I already told you that a salad is a salad, but a salad with herbs is immediately something much better:...January 9th 202114 K4.9
Remove bones from fish
Let's talk about fish: It's not a scoop, it's much more pleasant to eat fish from which all the bones have been carefully removed, even if it's a rather painful and time-consuming job, the result is worthy of your efforts. Here are some important points to keep in mind.October 16th 202114 K5
Tranché, dissociated, failed, in short... missed!
When preparing a sauce or a cream, there's always a (small) risk that the creamy preparation you're working on will suddenly separate into two parts of different textures: a liquid part, for example, and a more or less solid part, or even become lumpy. It's terribly frustrating, but we'll see...June 19th 202312 K5
Fruits which can ruin your jelly
There are many ways of making a fruit mousse, but one of the simplest is to prepare a fruit jelly (basically a fresh fruit coulis with gelatine) and then mix this jelly before it sets completely with whipped cream. The result is perfect for filling a charlotte, for example. But do beware;...March 6th 201378 K4.0
Raising (or leavening) agents
When we want to make a dough or batter rise when baking, either in patisserie or bread-making, we need to use a raising agent or leavening agent, one of which is called leaven. In the context of baking, a raising agent is simply what "makes something rise". It is a substance which, when added to...June 16th 202157 K4.8
Post a comment or question
Follow this page
If you are interested in this page, you can "follow" it, by entering your email address here. You will then receive a notification immediately each time the page is modified or a new comment is added. Please note that you will need to confirm this following.
Note: We'll never share your e-mail address with anyone else.
Alternatively: you can subscribe to the mailing list of cooling-ez.com , you will receive a e-mail for each new recipe published on the site.