Add the bean and seeds with the milk into a saucepan. Heat the milk over a medium to high heat and bring it near boiling point.

While the milk is being heated, split your eggs and put the yolks and the whites in a separate bowl.  Add the sugar to the yolks and mix (this is called a ‘ruban’).  Due to the natural oxidation process, it would be possible that the ‘ruban’ will become lighter in colour, but this doesn’t affect taste or quality.  Now add the flour and cornstarch to the egg mix, and stir thoroughly until you have a thick, smooth mix. Place this egg mix aside until the milk comes to a boil.

As soon as the milk almost starts to bubble, remove it from the heat.  I prefer not to let the milk boil, and to even let it cool down a bit.  Reason for this is that I do not want to risk the eggs cooking when we poor in the hot milk. (we would then basically end up with an omelette with sugar in it, which we do not want!)

Once the milk is warm rather than piping hot, slowly poor in about a quarter of the milk into the egg mix, whilst whisking continuously.  This is to bring the eggs up to the temperate of the milk, without cooking the eggs.  As soon as the egg mix is warmed up, you can add all the milk into the egg mix, stir and then return to the saucepan.

Heat the Crème Patissière base, over a medium heat, whilst whisking continuously until it starts to thicken – this should take a couple of minutes, and gives you a lovely arm work out at the same time 🙂

While whisking, let the custard come to a boil (so you can see bubbles). Then cook the cream for another 1-2 minutes after you see the first bubbles break the surface. Remove from the heat and poor into a bowl.   To prevent a cream skin from forming on top, I recommend you cover the surface with plastic wrap and ensure that the wrap touches the cream surface completely.

Let the cream cool down a little and then let it chill in the fridge until it is completely chilled.