Who doesn't want to be lectured on the finer points of pastry cream?

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 Pastry cream and its many, many uses

Watch here before, while and after you make your pasty cream
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5H5wUUFFsI

Begin here with a recipe,
4 large eggs
4 large egg yolks
1 cup sugar
5 Tablespoons cake flour
4 Tablespoons cornstarch
4 cups whole milk
1 vanilla bean
4 Tablespoons butter cut up and kept cold

Slice the vanilla bean right down the middle and scrape out the luscious insides, add to milk.
Add sugar to milk in a large non-reacting sauce pan, heat over medium heat just till sugar has dissolved completely.
Whisk together the egg and egg yolks in one bowl
In another bowl, whisk together the cornstarch and cake flour, then add to eggs and whisk very, VERY well. Making sure there are NO clumps, at all, anywhere.
Once the sugar has dissolved completely into the milk (the milk does not REPEAT DOES NOT need to boil at this point just warm enough to dissolve all that sugar) temper the milk into the eggs by adding just about half of the milk and whisking at the same time. You want to bring the eggs up to the same temperature as the milk so that the eggs wont curdle. There is nothing good about curdled pastry cream. True story. Add the rest the milk to the eggs and whisk to combine.
Pour back into pan via way of a sieve, this will get out funky bits that would other wise end up into your pastry cream. Whisk constantly over med-high or med-low heat. It's up to your comfort level on this one, if this is your first time making pastry cream, go for the med-low heat, you will work your way up to med-high, I promise.
You have to whisk for a full 2 minutes while the pastry cream is boiling, this will cook out the starches and thickens up your pastry cream. You will know if you didn't boil it long enough if your pastry cream is runny and doesn't hold its shape. Once it has boiled for a full 2 minutes, transfer to a kitchen-aide bowl and using your paddle attachment (does paddle attachment sound naughty only to me? Give me a shout out if you are feeling me!) on medium speed paddle away, add the cold butter immediately. Now, walk away. Let it mix away, do it's thing. Let it mix for up to 10 minutes, lets live dangerously. Once the bottom of the bowl is cool to the touch, not warm AT ALL. Its done.
Store in an air tight container with saran wrap placed directly on top of the pastry cream before you put the lid on. Let chill for at least 3 hours or over night.

This can be the base for many, many, MANY yummy yummy desserts in your life.
Buh-ring it my friends