Preparing the Vanilla Base
- 1
Take 2 tablespoons of the cold milk and stir in the starch until smooth. Set this mixture aside.
- 2
Heat the milk in a pot, but don't let it boil.
- 3
If you're using fresh vanilla pods, scrape the seeds from 2 vanilla pods and add both the seeds and the scraped pods to the heating milk. Otherwise, just add the vanilla powder.
- 4
In a separate bowl (preferably over a double boiler), whisk the egg yolks with the cane sugar until frothy and creamy.
- 5
When the milk is heated and just about to boil (it's already steaming but not bubbling), remove the vanilla pods from the milk.
- 6
Take a small sip of the heated milk and slowly add it to the egg yolk-sugar mixture, stirring constantly, to temper the eggs.
- 7
Once the egg yolk-sugar-milk mixture is homogeneous and liquid, add it to the rest of the hot milk in the pot, stirring.