Creme Brulee
(as per Vogue Australia Entertaining cookbook - morning noon night)
So that my brother is not caught out again when I'm not home to give him the recipe, here it is.
Ingredients:
1.5 vanilla beans, split lengthwise and seeds scraped out (I usually use 1/2 - 1 vanilla beans and this suffices easily)
100mL milk
400mL cream
4 egg yolks
75g castor sugar
antillaise sugar (or raw castor sugar or in an emergency brown sugar)
Preheat the oven to 170C. Put vanilla beans and seeds in a saucepan with the milk and cream and bring to the boil, then set aside. Beat the egg yolks and sugar until thick, then beat into the milk mixture. Cover and set aside for 1 hour (when in a hurry skip this step). Strain the mixture into 4 ramekins and cook in a bain-marie (baking dish with hot water in it) in the oven for 25 -30 minutes. Remove from the oven, allow to cool, then cover and chill (when in a hurry allow to cool for only a 15 minutes then put them on a cutting board and in the fridge so that the heat from them doesn't crack the glass shelves). Just before serving, sprinkle a thin layer of sugar on each creme and use a blow torch thingy (it actually says to use the grill but you only do that if it's an emergency because it heats it more then should be and most other books would advise you to use a flame to do the sugar) until the sugar begins to caramelise. Serve immediately.
So that my brother is not caught out again when I'm not home to give him the recipe, here it is.
Ingredients:
1.5 vanilla beans, split lengthwise and seeds scraped out (I usually use 1/2 - 1 vanilla beans and this suffices easily)
100mL milk
400mL cream
4 egg yolks
75g castor sugar
antillaise sugar (or raw castor sugar or in an emergency brown sugar)
Preheat the oven to 170C. Put vanilla beans and seeds in a saucepan with the milk and cream and bring to the boil, then set aside. Beat the egg yolks and sugar until thick, then beat into the milk mixture. Cover and set aside for 1 hour (when in a hurry skip this step). Strain the mixture into 4 ramekins and cook in a bain-marie (baking dish with hot water in it) in the oven for 25 -30 minutes. Remove from the oven, allow to cool, then cover and chill (when in a hurry allow to cool for only a 15 minutes then put them on a cutting board and in the fridge so that the heat from them doesn't crack the glass shelves). Just before serving, sprinkle a thin layer of sugar on each creme and use a blow torch thingy (it actually says to use the grill but you only do that if it's an emergency because it heats it more then should be and most other books would advise you to use a flame to do the sugar) until the sugar begins to caramelise. Serve immediately.
posted by earthkissed | 6:17 pm
6 Comments:
Mmmmmm.... Creme brulee..... :)
mmm, that does sound tasty.
but no lemon oil?
Tasty, yes, but it also sounds kind of ...complicated.
:-)
I think this would be great with a little lemon oil instead of (or with reduced?) vanilla. I once made a "Thai" creme brulee for a Thai lunch we had at my lab. (Basically, we decided to have a lunch but everybody had heard about the creme brulee so I was assigned to dessert and thought I should make it fit by making it with Lime and coconut cream). It was delicious but the original I think is still better.
What Bec didn't mention is that our blow torch is broken:( We may have to buy another. Alternatives to the torch or the grill are as follows:
1. The sugar can be caramelised in a saucepan and poured over the top of the brulee. Basically, put some white sugar in a saucepan, apply moderate heat. The sugar will melt and then turn brown. Just past smoking point, pour over the creme brulee. This was the method they used (I think) when we had the creme brulee at The French Room in Woombye. It results in a thicker layer which different people may or may not prefer.
2. Salamander (http://www.fantes.com/
images/1887creme_brulee.jpg). A round chunk of metal, preferably copper, cast iron or steel, on the end of a stick. The metal is heated up on the hob to a very high temp and then held over the top of the creme brulee until the sugar is caramelised. I have never seen this method or used it. I think that it is like using the grill but the heat source is so much closer that it should work as well as a torch, if not better.
I've probably made this more than Bec and spread the Creme Brulee legend far and wide among friends - not too complex when you doing it - very reliable recipe and is still a request 2 years later - best blow torch thingy is an industrial soldering torch - it's also great for the theater of the desert.
Yep. Still doing this. Best friends here for dinner tonight and they haven't experienced the Creme Brûlée. Thank you for posting recipe here.
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