This Crème Brûlée is soft and silky, made with vanilla bean, eggs, and cream.
We had a French theme one year for our annual Book Club dinner party, and I volunteered to provide the dessert. I had never made Crème Brûlée before, so I tried it out on my family. It was an immediate hit! (Ed. No kidding!)
The recipe below serves four but can easily be doubled or trebled for larger groups.
It is a little fussy, but not really that hard if you are willing to follow all the steps.
Crème Brûlée
Nothing makes you feel more French than a crème brûlée, n'est ce pas?
Ingredients
- 2 cup whipping cream
- 1/3 cup white sugar
- 4 egg yolks
- 1/2 vanilla bean - fruit of an orchid that goes through a fermentation process. Most of them come from the region of Madagascar.
- 1/4 cup demerera sugar - or other fine crystal sugar
Instructions
- The vanilla bean should be soft. Hold down the end of the vanilla bean and slice it in half along its length. Then, use a knife to scrape the grains (which have the vanilla flavour) from the bean. Add these grains as well as half the bean to a clean pot. (You can substitute 1 teaspoon of commercial vanilla extract, but the vanilla bean is superior in flavour.)
- Add the whipping cream. Scald the cream in the microwave until it is just warm to the touch, not boiling.
- As the cream is warming up, blanch the egg yolks and the sugar, but whisking them together until they are well mixed. Now temper the yolks with the cream, by adding about an eighth of a cup of the warmed cream to the yolks. This will warm the yolks but not cook them as the warmed cream is added. Now pour all the warmed cream/vanilla mixture into the tempered egg mixture.
- Stir the entire mixture thoroughly and it can be portioned into ramekins or other small flattish glass dishes. You will need to remove any visible vanilla at this point. The mixing may have added some air bubbles to the mixture, which you can remove using a culinary torch (found at most cookery shops). The surface needs to be clear.
- Now cook the custard in a water bath, so the small containers will not overcook. Place a cloth in the bottom of a ridged pan. I often use a Pyrex dish large enough to hold all four ramekins.
- The ramekins should be filled almost to the top. Place three of them into the Pyrex dish and add boiling water until it is halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Do not add the last ramekin until the boiling water has been added, so that water is not accidentally poured into one of the dishes. Heating the water to boiling in advance speeds the cooking step. Add the last ramekin to the pan and bake in a 325F (160C) oven for 30-35 minutes.
- To check that the custard has set, shake them gently and they should wobble like jelly.
- Remove the ramekins to a clean pan, being careful not to spill any water into them and put them into the fridge for about four hours until completely chilled.
- Take the chilled containers out and sprinkle them with the dremerera sugar. Shake them so that the excess sugar comes off. Clean the sides of the dish so that there is no sugar on the edges. Turn on the culinary torch and caramelize the tops, staying 2 to 3 inches away. It should brown quickly.
- Wait about ten seconds for the sugar to cool (you don't want to ignite it) and then reapply the torch. You want to have one or two dark brown spots in the caramelised top.
