"Smooth, creamy, delicate...yet masculine!" --Cosmo Kramer

Creme Brulee

I love crème brulee.  Really, who doesn’t?  People who haven’t tried it, that’s who.  Mmm…the creaminess, the sweetness, the egginess…it’s really the perfect dessert.

Mary and I found some ramekins at Ross for cheap—I think 6 of them cost three dollars.  That was a great start, but I thought we should have eight, as there are eight grown-ups in my family.  I’m not counting the babies just yet, though I’m sure they would enjoy the crème brulee.  Again, who wouldn’t?  Well, maybe babies.  I don’t know.

We picked up two more ramekins at the Beyond (with what seems to have become an endless supply of wedding gift cards) and the ingredients are straight-forward:

Heavy cream

Sugar

Salt

Vanilla bean (we used plain old vanilla extract)

Eggs

Turbinado sugar (this ingredient isn’t exactly a staple, but was very easy to find at the supermarket)

The recipe, too, was also fairly simple, especially after having done flan.  This is pretty similar.  I first set up the ramekins for the water bath and began boiling a pot of water.  I didn’t mention this in the flan post, but the water bath is done to prevent the custard from drying out.  Because the water can only heat up to 212 degrees, it keeps the custard cooking evenly (and the evaporating water keeps the inside of the oven nice and humid, which doesn’t hurt).

Next, I heated up about half of the heavy cream (the recipe calls for four cups—wow, it’s a good thing this is served in small portions, right?) with the sugar and the vanilla.  This helps the sugar dissolve and lets the vanilla infuse with the cream.  This would be more important if you were using vanilla bean.

While that was heating up, I separated 10 eggs.  The recipe calls for 10 yolks—again, it’s a good thing this dessert is served in small portions.  If I had planned ahead better, I could have done something with the whites (like make a healthy omelet), but I didn’t.  I did, however, think that the 10 yolks all together in the bowl, looked quite pretty, like a big yellow flower that just happens to be high in cholesterol.

Combine the yolks.

Add the heated cream mixture.

The next step is to add the rest of the non-heated cream, which goes quickly so I didn’t get a picture of it.  After that, though, it is ready to go into the ramekins.  I transferred the mixture into a mixing bowl that has a little nose for pouring and it made filling the ramekins SO much easier than if I had tried to pour directly from the Pyrex mixing bowl.  After that, just fill up the water bath with the boiling water and bake at 300 degress.

Like with the flan, I baked until the internal temperature of the custard was around 170.  This took about 40 minutes. 

After the ramekins come out of the oven, they need to cool for a few hours and then chill for a few more, but then comes the fun part!

The idea of the crust is very simple.  You put the turbinado sugar on top and torch it.  I found out, though, that this part is more difficult than I thought it would be; it requires finesse.  The key, I learned, is not the torch.  True, I have to keep the torch moving to avoid burning the sugar.  However, the amount of sugar is what makes or breaks the crust.  With ramekin #1 (below), I used too much sugar.

The result?

Darn, burned it.  Because the sugar was so thick, I couldn't get all of it bubbly without burning the top layer.  So I was off to a slow start.  Ramekin #2 was more successful.  I used less sugar and kept the torch moving quicker...ideally, the sugar would all come to the boiling point at the same time.

Better.

Here’s a picture with all 8 done.  #1 was the top right and #8, the bottom left.  The two that we had burned, (numbers 1 and 8) were not ruined.  We ate one of them while it was crunchy and it was less good than the others (and with a tougher shell), but still edible.  The other was put in the fridge and eaten later, after the top had softened up and turned to caramel.  Some of the burned taste remained, but the texture was much more palatable.  The last two, 7 and 8 (top left and bottom left) show a stark difference.  #8 has too much sugar and, like #1, in an effort to get all of it bubbly, it was burned.  The sugar was just too thick.  #7 used a nice thin layer of sugar (even shaking off some excess) and got a nice even, thin crust.  The middle of #7 is perfect and this is what I will be shooting for on future brulees.

They were all tasty, though.  Really.  So good.  The recipe says that these should be chilled a bit after the torching (to re-chill the top layer of custard which was probably warmed up as the torch passed over it) and then eaten very soon after that (to prevent the crust from going soft and turning into liquid caramel).  I agree.  They are best while the crust is crunchy.  You have to crack it with the spoon, so it’s delicious AND it’s fun!