This post actually has two recipes! One for mango pastry cream and one for mango fruit tarts. I have been playing with custard based recipes a lot. For this recipe to be successful, you will need a non aluminum saucepan and a scale. I have included volume measurements if you don’t have a scale.
What is the difference between Mango Pastry Cream and Mango Curd?
Mango Pastry Cream has milk (and sometimes cream to make it thicker) while curd has no milk. While there are many recipes for mango curd, there aren’t a lot of recipes for mango pastry cream.
What can you use mango pastry cream for?
You can use it to make fruit tarts (see how to make the perfect pie pastry for the dough). I happened to have frozen pie pastry on hand. Alternatively, spread it as a filling when torting a cake. My favourite way to use pastry cream is to make German Buttercream, which uses up to 4 TBSP of the mango pastry cream. Stay tuned for that recipe!

The good news about this recipe is that you can use frozen mangoes. If you are using frozen mangoes, remove excess liquids when the mangoes have thawed by using a paper towel. For another mango recipe, I highly recommend my mango freezer jam recipe. Both recipes use ataulfo mangoes.
I have made mango pastry cream TWICE and I much prefer this recipe run.
What did I do differently in each recipe run?
I used tapioca starch instead of flour; if you don’t have tapioca flour on hand, all purpose flour works as well. Instead of boiling the vanilla extract with the milk and sugar, I added the vanilla extract closest to the last step possible. I also added unsalted butter in the first step of trial run 2. Rather than ribboning egg yolks with sugar together with a hand mixer, I found hand whisking the flour, cornstarch, sugar prior to mixing the cream and yolks produced a thicker consistency. Another important detail is to cool the pastry cream immediately in an ice water bath and cover it with cling wrap. Store the pastry cream in the fridge for 4 hours before use. Also, I increased the amount of mango puree from 1/4 cup to 1/3 cup. I found using a thermometer the second time was also helpful. When your whisk leaves a trail when whisking, your pastry cream is ready.


How to make fruit tarts using a muffin tin?
To make fruit tarts, you will need to blind bake some pie pastry. One grapefruit sized pie pastry yields around 10 to 12 tarts. Roll out your pie pastry. You will need a 4 inch round cutter; roll out the dough after cutting it so that your tart crust will have room to shrink during baking.
Use a fork to poke holes on the bottom of each tart.

As you have noticed from the picture above that these tarts would shrink during baking. So, be generous with your circle! My largest circle (the ugly one which is cropped in the photo) did much better. You can use tin foil and pie weights if you wanted, but once you cover the tarts with pastry cream, you get rustic fruit tarts!
Bake at 425F for 35 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack before adding mango pastry cream. Once tart shells are cooled, pipe pastry cream. Peel, slice and cube a mango. Garnish with your favourite berry along with the mango.
The pastry cream will keep covered in the fridge for up to 5 days. After filling 10 tarts, making buttercream, there is still some leftover pastry cream. Mango pastry cream is delicious on its own! It tastes almost like mango pudding.
If you are looking for a plain crème pâtissière, try Melanie’s mini strawberry pies.
What is the equivalent volume of sugar, cornstarch and tapioca flour in this recipe?
30g sugar is roughly 2 tbsp, 1.2 tsp (so 1 tsp + scant 1/4 tsp) of sugar in volume.
15g of tapioca flour or cornstarch is 2 tbsp + 1 tsp.
How do I use up the two egg whites? Try my easy cocoa pancakes recipe!

Servings | Prep Time |
12 tarts | 5 minutes |
Cook Time | Passive Time |
20 minutes | 4 hours |
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Thick and delicious mango pastry cream; keeps for up to 5 days in the fridge. Make German buttercream or fruit tarts with it.
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- 3/4 cup milk
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter
- 2 egg yolks
- 60 g sugar granulated; 30g and 30g
- 1/3 cup altaufo mango pureed
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 15 g tapioca flour
- 15 g corn starch
- Combine milk in a saucepan with 28g unsalted butter and 30g sugar. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Keep stirring to dissolve the sugar.
- In a medium sized bowl, combine the cornstarch and tapioca flour with the remaining 30g sugar. Stir with a whisk. Add egg yolks and heavy cream to the mixture and whisk. Add mango puree and vanilla.
- Temper: pour a third of the hot milk mixture to the yolk/cream mixture. Whisk well until incorporated.
- Return the mixture to the remaining hot milk in the saucepan. Promptly whisk and stir constantly while on medium low heat. Let it come to a rolling boil until the mixture thickens. You can remove the saucepan from heat once it reaches 73°C. The whisk will leave a trail in it.
- Pour the pastry cream from the saucepan into a bowl. Put a plastic wrap on the surface of the pastry cream. Cool over an ice water bath. Cool in the fridge for 4 hours before using.
- Store the pastry cream covered in the fridge for up to 5 days.
- To make mango fruit tarts, use either store bought tart shells or roll out pie pastry dough. Preheat oven to 425F. Use a 4" round cutter and roll again. A bigger tart circle will compensate for some shrinking during blind baking.
- Place each round pastry into the cavity of a muffin tin. Use fork tines to poke holes on the bottom of each tart. Blind bake the tart shells for 35 minutes. Let the muffin tin cool on a wire rack. Peel, slice and cube a mango while waiting for the tart shells to cool.
- Once cooled enough, remove the tart shells from the tin and cool further on the wire rack.
- When the tart shells are completely cooled, fill a piping bag with mango pastry cream. Pipe and fill each tart. Decorate with cubed mangoes and berries as desired.
yummm i want to try this!
This sounds amazing. Makes me think of making a Mango Flan.
A mango flan sounds amazing! The pastry cream doesn’t require baking though.
Oh my goodness, this sounds amazing. I’ve only ever had mango curd and never even heard of it being turned into a pastry cream. Delicious as a filling, on scones and so much more. Love it!
I’ll take the creamy version all day! 🙂 A big bonus is being able to use the frozen mango so this can be made year round. Great tip!
I love mango and I can just imagine how delicious these creamy little tarts are.
i love mango anything! i can’t wait to try this!
I’ll be honest…I saw the title of this post and I was salivating before I even clicked through! This looks delicious, Cynthia. I can’t wait to try it!
Thanks! If you added it to buttercream, it would complement some of the cakes you already have on your blog!
Great tip about using frozen mango. I love working with frozen mango, but I often forget to take the extra moisture into account! Very glad you shared this post – as you say, there are plenty of curd variations, but it’s nice to have something specific for pastry cream. Cheers!
I love mango and I can’t believe I’d never had it in pastry cream before. This recipe is brilliant and works out perfectly following the tips you give. So many ways to use it (if I could quit eating it by the spoonful!) thanks!
Oh what a lovely light recipe for summer! I can picture these little tarts at a dinner party topped with local strawberries. Yum!