The most magical, impressive, and easiest dessert to accomplish! Of course, I have tested this twice with two different ingredients and I was shocked at the results!
What is Crème Brulee?
Crème brulee translates to brunt sugar, or burnt cream. This is a classic French dessert that is fascinating to watch as you make it. It starts out with simple ingredients and mixing them together. You place in the oven and just like pumpkin pie you bake just until the center sets. Removing them from the water bath and placing them in the fridge. Next you get to play with fire, or use your broil (my preferred method), then sit back and what the magic happen!
Sugar is a liquid, and when carbohydrates meet heat it turns charred. Think of bread, you place it in the toaster and it starts to turn brown/black depending on how crispy you get it. This is why in recipes the sugar goes in with the wet ingredients unless noted otherwise. You now understand why chef will call sugar a liquid. I touched on this during a live show I did making some of the best brownies ever discussing how sugar and cocoa powder help one another in chocolate desserts.
Heavy Cream or Half and Half?
This dessert is very elegant and quite simple, you really cannot go wrong here until you use half and half instead of heavy cream. This is where I went wrong. I know myself better to not get distracted at the grocery store or in the kitchen because I always mess it up. I grabbed the half and half instead of heavy cream and it did not turn out the same at all. The heavy cream sets up nicely where half and half consists of too much liquid and not the right amount of proteins to hold it all together. Even though eggs are in this, they can overbake because of the lightness of the heavy cream and then you are left with scrambled eggs that taste sweet. HA!
When making custards, cheesecake, etc, you always hear about a water bath. There are many reasons for it but one is so the custard doesn’t crack. It takes 2 extra seconds to do and so worth it.
To make this extra delicious and crowd-pleasing, I use vanilla bean. Two methods, you spilt open the pod and heat the cream and pod together or scrape out the beans (the inside of the vanilla bean pod) and add to your batter. There is a difference but both turn out equally delicious. I like to add the pod to the cream after scraping out the beans then adding the beans directly into the mixture.
The sugar. You can use granulated but I find fine sugar works best here. Order on Amazon, cheap and you will be making this recipe again I guarantee it! Check out the weird video below with sound to here the sugar crack on the last hit!
The last crack is the best! Sorry not sorry about the disco lighting, this is truly a party in your mouth!
The dishes play a huge role as well. I used ramekins and I have use beautiful, traditional crème brulee dishes that I did not like. The ones you see in restaurants, I did not love. I like the ramekins because there is a thick bite and you get a mouthful. The full experience is well worth the ramekins, plus the traditional dishes are expensive! OMG!
You will love this recipe and it is basic. A lot of time you will find the same recipes for this dessert, add espresso powder to make it coffee flavored the next time!
Creme Brulee
Ingredients
- 6 large egg yolks
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- Dash of salt
- 3 cups heavy whipping cream
- 1 vanilla bean pod, deseeded
- Caster sugar (fine sugar)
Directions
- Method 1 : Combine cream and vanilla bean pod, deseeded and set aside the seeds, in a sauce pan over low heat. Heat until cream is warm, do not bring to a simmer or boil. Remove and carefully discard vanilla bean pod. Pour into a bowl, mix with seeds from the vanilla bean pod, then store in refrigerator until chilled. Skip to step #3.
- Method 2: You can follow directions 3-10 without heating cream. This method is just to enhance the vanilla taste. You can easily just combine all ingredients at once. Move forward with directions below if no desire to heat cream and wait for chilling period.
- Pre-heat oven to 300 degree F. Place 5-6 ramekins in a deep baking pan. Set aside.
- In a small sauce pan, boil 6 cups water.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together yolks, powdered sugar, salt and vanilla bean seeds. Slowly pour in the cream to combine.
- Strain mixture into a bowl or large measuring cup. This helps remove any lumps from the powdered sugar. The spout makes it easier to pour, you don’t have to do it this way but I like to make it an easy transition!
- Evenly distribute among ramekins. Pour boil water carefully into the deep baking pan to create a water bath for the custard mixture. Pour until about 1/3 of the way up the ramekins.
- Place directly in the oven for 45-50 minutes. When you start to see just the middle a bit jiggly, remove from the oven and use tongs to remove the custards from the water. Allow to rest3-5 minutes then place the ramekins into the refrigerator for at least 60 minutes or more if serving the same day. I like to make these in the morning and allow them to rest until dessert in the evening.
- If using the broiling method, turn your oven on Hi broil.
- Remove custards, add a layer of sugar on the tops. Broil for 2-3 minutes or until your desired brulee tops or torch your custards. Allow to set 3ish minutes to harden. Enjoy! Good for up to 3 days in refrigerator without sugar on top.
*Great to make the custard prior to guests arriving and leave them to chill, then light their minds on fire with your torch method or broiler method when it is dessert time!
