Crème Anglaise (Vanilla Custard Sauce)

Crème anglaise is a foundational custard sauce every baker and dessert lover should have in their back pocket. Once you understand the technique, you will use it constantly.

Crème anglaise is a building block of classic French pastry. Just like its cousin crème patissière, it is incredibly versatile. It is an easy custard sauce that can be used as a sauce for cakes, cookies, tarts, and pies, and some classic French desserts like the floating island.

It is silky smooth and just the right amount of sweet! Add your favorite alcohol to make a fun dipping sauce for a cookie plate. It’s an easy addition to make any dessert feel special! For a deeper dive into the broader family of egg-based desserts, start with my custard recipes collection.

Ingredients & Substitutions

• Heavy Cream and Whole Milk: Don’t substitute low-fat milk or non-dairy alternatives here, as the fat content gives the finished sauce its body and silkiness.
• Granulated Sugar: Sweetens the custard and helps stabilize the egg proteins during cooking. Divide the sugar so part goes into the cream mixture and part gets whisked with the eggs, which I always do to keep the yolks from clumping before they hit the heat.
• Vanilla Bean: This is the single most critical ingredient in the flavor profile, so use a fresh, pliable bean rather than a dried-out one. Splitting and scraping the bean into the cream before heating lets the seeds fully infuse the fat, where the flavor compounds are most readily absorbed. For more flavoring with vanilla bean, check out this creme brulee pie!(coming soon!) If you don’t have a vanilla bean, stir in two teaspoons of pure vanilla extract off the heat, though the depth will be noticeably different.
• Whole Eggs: I use whole eggs for custard sauces because egg yolks alone aren’t necessary. Eggs simplify the recipe and give the sauce the perfect consistency.

See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.

Variations on This Crème Anglaise (Vanilla Custard Sauce)

• Chocolate Anglaise. Whisk chopped chocolate directly into the hot, strained custard and stir until fully melted and smooth: the residual heat is enough to melt most dark or milk chocolate without any additional cooking, just like when making this chocolate pastry cream. (coming soon!)
• Fruit-Flavored Anglaise. Stir a fruit puree into the finished, cooled sauce until combined. Quick Strawberry Jam works particularly well here, adding brightness without making the sauce too thin.
• Caramel Anglaise. Fold Salted Caramel Sauce into the cooled anglaise to taste, starting with a few tablespoons and adjusting from there.
• Spiked Anglaise. Stir a tablespoon or two of bourbon, rum, or Grand Marnier into the cooled sauce before serving: alcohol added to hot custard will cook off, so always add it after the sauce has chilled.

Professional Tips

• Whisk the eggs and sugar together as soon as the cream goes on the stove. Leaving sugar sitting on raw yolks for more than a minute or two will begin to cook them through a process called burning, leaving yellow specks in your finished sauce that no amount of straining will fully fix.
• Slow and steady tempering. Adding the hot cream too fast, or stopping to stir rather than whisking constantly, is the single most common reason anglaise scrambles. Pour in a slow, thin stream with one hand and whisk steadily with the other.
• Heat the custard after mixing. This differs from many other recipes, but cooking the custard over low heat to 178°F will not only make it safe to consume but also thicken it to the perfect sauce consistency.
• Chill it fast. Strain into a bowl set over an ice bath and stir occasionally to drop the temperature quickly enough to stop carryover cooking. A sauce left to cool slowly on the counter will keep thickening and can develop an off flavor from prolonged heat exposure.

How to Make Crème Anglaise (Vanilla Custard Sauce)

This recipe moves quickly once the eggs go in, so have your ice bath ready before you turn on the stove. Find further details and measurements in the recipe card below.

Step 1: Warm the cream, milk, sugar, salt, and vanilla. Combine the cream, milk, half the sugar, salt, and the split vanilla bean with its scraped seeds in a heavy-bottomed saucepot. Bring to a boil over medium heat, then remove from heat immediately.(photo 1)

Step 2: Whisk the eggs and remaining sugar. While your cream mixture comes to temperature, whisk together the whole eggs and remaining sugar until the mixture lightens to a pale yellow and looks slightly thickened. Whisking the sugar into the eggs right away protects them from the sugar drawing out moisture and leaving streaky, partially cooked bits. (photo 2)

You do not have to divide the sugar evenly. Just eyeball it. The sugar in the milk mixture keeps it from scorching, and the sugar whisked with the eggs helps protect them against cooking when the boiling milk mixture is added.

Step 3: Temper the hot cream into the eggs gradually. Ladle roughly a quarter of the hot cream mixture into the egg mixture in a slow, steady stream while whisking constantly. Repeat with another quarter of the cream, then pour the egg mixture back into the pot with the remaining cream. It will look thin and loose at this point, which is completely normal. (photo 3)

The point of going in two additions is to raise the egg temperature slowly enough that you get a smooth custard instead of scrambled eggs.

Step 4: Cook until nappant. Return the pot to medium-high heat and stir continuously with a wooden spoon or heatproof spatula, reaching into the corners and across the bottom of the pot. The custard will look very liquid for several minutes before it begins to thicken. You are looking for it to reach 178°F on an instant-read thermometer, or for the sauce to coat the back of a spoon and hold a clean line when you drag your finger through it just like when making easy lemon curd. (photo 4)

If your heat is too high and the custard starts to look curdled or grainy around the edges, pull it off the heat immediately and strain it. A quick blitz with an immersion blender can sometimes rescue a slightly broken anglaise, but a smooth result always comes from patient, constant stirring and not walking away from the pot.

Step 5: Strain, cover, and chill in an ice bath. Pour the custard through a fine-mesh strainer into a clean bowl to remove the vanilla pods and any cooked egg bits. Press a piece of plastic wrap directly onto the custard surface to prevent a skin from forming, then set the bowl in an ice bath and stir occasionally until fully cooled.(photo 5)

Keep the ice bath ready before you start cooking so you can move the finished custard into it immediately and stop the carryover cooking.

Recipe FAQs

Before You Go

This poured custard sauce is one of those foundational recipes that quietly makes everything around it better, and I hope you reach for it often. For more recipes to pair it with, browse my Dessert Recipes or try this homemade vanilla pudding recipe next!