Chocolate Cremeux (VIDEO)

5 from 6 votes

Also known as Crémeux au Chocolat in French, Chocolate Crémeux is a classic French dessert made with five simple ingredients: milk, sugar, egg, heavy cream, and dark chocolate. With a silky texture that isn't too firm and isn't too soft, a dark Chocolate Crémeux is the perfect creamy topping or filling for your favorite cakes, pastries, and tarts.

Prep Time10

Cook Time5

Total Time15

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: French

Servings:

Calories: 408kcal

Author: Katalin Nagy

Equipment

Ingredients

125 g Milk 3% fat
125 g Heavy Cream 36% fat
50 g Granulated sugar
60 g Egg yolk approx. yolk of 3 eggs
125 g Dark Chocolate high quality chocolate callets eg. Callebaut 811 (54.5% cocoa)

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

Semi-melt the chocolate in the microwave or over double boiler in a plastic, microwave safe bowl.
In a large enough bowl, with the help of a Hand whisk, whisk together sugar and egg yolk until slightly fluffy for about 1-2 minutes.
Bring milk and cream to a simmer in a saucepan on medium heat then remove it as soon as it starts simmering. Make sure it is simmering but not boiling.
Pour the warm milk-cream mixture over the egg yolk mixture slowly while whisking vigorously with a Hand whisk. This stage is effectively tempering the egg yolks.
Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and cook on medium heat until the temperature reached 82C / 180F.
Remove the cream from the stove as soon as the cream reaches the desired temperature. Do not cook it further as the mixture will curdle.
Pour custard over semi-melted chocolate and stir throughout with a rubber spatula or hand blend it until fully incorporated.
Place the cream into a shallow bowl or container, cover the surface with plastic wrap and refrigerate to set for a minimum of 6 hours.
After 6 hours, use the cremeux according to the recipe. Any leftover can be refrigerated for 2-3 days.

Video

Notes

INGREDIENT NOTES:

Measure your ingredients with a Digital scale for accuracy
Use High fat content milk and cream and high quality couverture chocolate for the best result

TECHNIQUE NOTES:

Make sure you read my Expert tips section above to maximize your success. A short recipe alone is not able to cover all the necessary details, and science behind baking.
While melting the chocolate in the microwave, use a plastic bowl as in glass bowl it can easily burn
Do not heat the mixture further than 82C / 180F as the egg will curdle
Make sure that the chocolate and warm custard are fully incorporated, use a hand blender if in doubt
Respect the chilling time. The cream is rather runny straight after making it and will set in the fridge
For a milk or white chocolate cremeux, you would want to use either more chocolate eg. 200g instead of 125g (and reduce the sugar) or add gelatin into the initial creme anglaise recipe

Nutrition