Chocolate Crémeux, what exactly is it? Well if you haven’t had the pleasure of tasting crémeux before, you are in for a real treat! Crémeux is basically an enriched custard based ganache, it is made up of 2 components, crème anglaise (english custard) and chocolate. Hot crème anglaise is poured over chocolate, the chocolate doubles up as a setting agent resulting in a rich, silk smooth, melt in your mouth crémeux. With milk and white chocolate crémeux we also add a little gelatine to aid the stability of the crémeux, i’ll go on to talk about that a little later.
How and where to use Chocolate Crémeux!
- Fill into tart shells
- Layer between cake sponges
- Fill into choux pastry like eclairs or choux buns
- Pipe onto desserts as a garnish
Ingredients
- Whipping Cream 35% Fat – This forms the luxurious base of your crèmeux, providing unparalleled richness and a silky mouthfeel. The high fat content (35% is ideal) is essential for a truly decadent texture, ensuring the final product is smooth, creamy, and holds its shape beautifully.
- Whole Milk – Complementing the cream, whole milk adds additional liquid and dairy solids, contributing to the crèmeux’s overall body and helping to create a perfectly balanced emulsion. It ensures the crèmeux is rich without being overly dense, allowing the delicate chocolate flavour to shine.
- Caster Sugar – This finely granulated sugar dissolves effortlessly into your liquid ingredients, preventing any gritty texture. It provides the essential sweetness that enhances and balances the flavour of the milk chocolate, ensuring the crèmeux is delightfully indulgent without being cloyingly sweet.
- White Chocolate – I use a 28% white chocolate made by Callebaut but you can use any white chocolate.
- Vanilla Paste – Vanilla acts as an exquisite aromatic bridge, enhancing the chocolate’s natural flavours and adding a layer of warmth and sophistication. Using vanilla paste provides concentrated flavour and lovely visible specks of vanilla bean, contributing to both the taste and visual appeal of your crèmeux.
- Sea Salt – A small pinch of sea salt is a secret ingredient that works wonders in chocolate desserts. It doesn’t make the crèmeux taste salty but rather brightens and intensifies the chocolate flavour, cutting through sweetness and adding a subtle complexity that makes each bite more dynamic and satisfying.
- Gelatine Mass – This is the crucial setting agent for your crèmeux. Gelatine mass (typically pre-bloomed gelatine sheets or powder mixed with water) provides the necessary stability, allowing the crèmeux to set with a perfectly smooth, melt-in-your-mouth consistency. It’s what enables the crèmeux to be piped, layered, or served cleanly, giving it the structure it needs while maintaining its creamy texture.
Why We Use Gelatine?
Milk and white chocolates contain milk, the addition of the extra liquid need to be stabilised in some way in order for the crémeux to set and also hold when used. There 2 ways we do this:
- We increase the amount of chocolate to introduce more cocoa solids and cocoa butter
- Adding Gelatine
I know what you are thinking, ‘why can’t we just add more chocolate?’
Well you could but that is going to get expensive very quickly, also by adding more chocolate you are still effectively adding more milk to the recipe. Then there’s the quantity of anglaise in the recipe. By the time you find the right amount of chocolate you might not have enough anglaise to emulsify the chocolate into, this is going to effect your final product. Where you would normally have a silky smooth crémeux you will end up having something basically closer to just being pure chocolate again, solid, firm and teeth shattering, definitely not pleasant to eat!
Check out my ‘The Science of Gelatine: How It Works in Your Recipes’ to understand more about gelatine, how to use gelatine and conversions of gelatine strength
All the equipment you need to make Crémeux
- Heavy Bottom Saucepan
- Mixing Bowl
- Digital scale
- Temperature Probe
- Spatula
- Fine Mesh Strainer
- Tall Jug
How to store Crémeux
Crémeux will store for up to 3 day in the fridge.
Crémeux will also freeze well for up to 3 months. In both cases be sure to store crémeux surface wrapped with cling film in an air tight container, chocolate will absorb the smells of other strong foods like garlic and onions compromising the flavour of the crémeux.
Defrost the crémeux in the fridge. As with most desserts that are frozen, once thawed the texture of the crémeux may not be exactly the same as if it was stored in the fridge.
White Chocolate Crémeux
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- In a bowl mix together egg yolk and sugar till combined1
- Add chocolate to a tall jug2 with the gelatine mass3
- Add milk and cream to a pan and bring to a simmer4
- Once the liquid has come to a simmer pour over yolks and sugar a little at a time, stirring continuously until about half the liquid has been incorporated. This is called tempering.
- Pour the tempered egg yolk mixture back into the pan with the remaining liquid on a low/medium heat. Keep stirring, scraping the bottom and the sides of the pan until the mix has reached 83℃ (181℉)5
- Immediately strain through a fine mesh sieve onto the chocolate and let it sit for 30 seconds
- Using a stick blender, blitz the chocolate through the anglaise until the chocolate has completely emulsified6
- Pour into an air tight container and surface wrap with cling film to avoid a skin forming. Let it chill and set in the fridge for 3-4 hours before using7
- When ready to use whisk until to have achieved medium/stiff peaks
Notes
- When mixing egg yolks and sugar you only want to combine it together. Do not mix vigorously, you don't want to incorporate any air.
- Use a high quality chocolate, if it is in bar form, chop in to small pieces.
- Gelatine mass is hydrated gelatine powder. If you are using gelatine sheets use and equal amount in weight of the gelatine powder stated in the recipe. To learn more about gelatine check out my: 'The Science of Gelatine: How It Works in Your Recipes'
- You don't want to boil the liquid. When it comes to tempering the yolks pouring boiling liquid over room temperature yolks will cause the temperature to rise quickly and scramble the eggs.
- You want to keep the custard moving otherwise you'll end up with scrambled egg through your mix and the custard will take on an eggy flavour.
- You want a tall jug so that the head of the stick blender stays submerged to avoid too many air bubbles forming. Avoid moving the stick blender around to much, move up and down slowly without breaking the surface. You can do this by hand if you don't have a stick blender, a stick blender allows the fats to emulsify thoroughly so the mix does not split out.
- Only chill the mix if you are going to use crémeux as a filling or garnish, if you intend to fill a tart shell with crémeux fill straight after blending while still liquid. Once the crèmeux is set you should refrain from heating up crémeux, the egg in the mix could overheat bringing out a really eggy flavour or the chocolate could burn.