Sooooo. Nothing like a six week hiatus to make me feel bad about myself. Apologies for the lack of updates here on The Saucy Coq in the past several weeks. A lot on my plate to get the new decade rolling in the right direction. Back on track now!
Like every Christmas, my family’s go-to gifts for me fall in the kitchen & cooking genre. And, rightly so…I’m always up for experimenting with new foods and techniques. This year, my sister got me a blow torch with some nice ramekins. The next gift I opened was some Vanilla beans from Madagascar. Then, she let me know that there happened to be a dozen fresh eggs and cream in the fridge. “Merry Christmas” she said, “I want crème brûlée”.
Crème brûlée, French for “burnt cream”, is a dessert consisting of a rich custard base topped with a contrasting layer of hard caramel. This was actually my first attempt at making the rich dessert. For starters, as I’ve mentioned many times, I don’t bake. Secondly, even though crème brûlée is a pretty basic affair, it’s always remained a restaurant dessert for me. Enter the blow torch. If you weren’t a fan of Home Improvement in the ’90s, you wouldn’t understand, but the torch makes me feel a bit Tim Taylor-esque. Grunting, looking around the kitchen for anything that will volunteer to be torched.
For now, it’s just this custard mix. For the future, I’m scared.
Crème Brûlée
3/4 cup sugar
4 large egg yolks
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 large vanilla bean
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. If you have a whole vanilla bean, use the tip of your knife to open up the bean length-wise, then press the knife down at an angle and scrape it along the length of the bean to remove the seeds. It actually looks like a brown paste inside, but what you’re extracting are all of the seeds, and, all of the flavor.
Place the cream, vanilla bean and its pulp into a medium saucepan set over medium-high heat for 10 minutes, but do not bring to a boil. Remove from the heat, cover and allow to sit for 15 minutes. Remove the vanilla bean.
In a medium bowl, whisk together 1/2 cup of the sugar and the egg yolks until well blended and it just starts to lighten in color. Add the cream a little at a time, stirring continually. If the cream is still hot, it’s important to add the cream in small batches so as not to cook the eggs.
Pour the liquid into 6 ramekins. Place the ramekins into a large cake pan or roasting pan and pour enough hot water into the pan to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake just until the crème brûlée is set, but still jiggles in the center, approximately 40 to 45 minutes. Remove the ramekins from the roasting pan and refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to 3 days.
Remove the crème brûlée from the refrigerator at least 30 minutes prior to browning the sugar on top. Divide the remaining sugar equally among the 6 dishes and spread evenly on top. Using a torch, melt the sugar and form a crispy top. Allow the crème brûlée to sit for at least 5 minutes before serving.
Sooooo good.
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