Creme Brulee

When I’m out at a restaurant and they bring the dessert menu, there is one dessert that will get me every time. I am powerless against it. It doesn’t matter how full I already am, I can’t resist the irresistible pull of luscious, sweet custard hidden beneath crunchy burnt sugar. If Belinda Carlisle was right, and heaven is indeed a place on earth, I’m pretty sure she was talking about creme brûlée.

Go ahead. Sing it in your head. I’ll wait. Now try to tell me the lyrics aren’t 100% applicable here. Especially when you get to the part where she passionate belts with that throaty 80’s rock grunge, “Baby, I was afraid before. I’m not afraid ANYMORE!” If you are anything like me, you order creme brûlée every time you can, mostly because it’s just something that is too hard and too fussy to make at home. Well, baby, tonight we’ll make heaven a place in your kitchen. (See what I did there? Someone call Belinda. It’s time for a lyric update!)

For something so daunting, I can only turn to people on the internet I truly trust. This recipe is attributed to Alton Brown on the Food Network website. Alton would never hurt me. Hopefully I get Good Eats Alton and not Cutthroat Kitchen Alton, because I definitely don’t need any extra sabotages!

Here’s what really gets me about creme brûlée–it’s amazing to me that something so delicious comes from so few ingredients. It’s literally just cream, sugar, vanilla for flavor, and egg to thicken the cream. To get these four things to come together so perfectly is all in the process–most notably, heating the eggs without ending up with scrambled eggs. We accomplish this by heating the cream, then slowly adding that to the eggs (mixed with sugar) to slowly raise the temperature of the eggs.

Quick note: this recipes calls for a vanilla bean that you scrape out and heat both pulp and pod with the cream to infuse it with a rich vanilla flavor. I had one vanilla bean stashed in the back of the baking supply cabinet. Poor bean. It was brittle and dry and totally unusable. If this happens to you, or if you just can’t be bothered buying vanilla beans for this, you’re fine. You can absolutely substitute vanilla extract (the real stuff, though, please!) for the bean. I have seen this type of substitution in other recipes, but I didn’t know if adding liquid vanilla on top of lots of other liquid was going to work out, so I removed a Tablespoon of cream to compensate. Look, I don’t know if that’s what you should do or if it would have affected the finished product or not. Also, I’m not entirely sure if I needed to heat the extract with the cream or if I could have added it to the eggs and sugar. Mostly, I just wanted to make sure I had a pronounced enough vanilla flavor, so adding it with the cream allowed me to test whether or not I had enough. Leave it to me to improvise on a recipe I’ve never tried before, but I’m confident that you can do exactly what I did and achieve good results.

Next hurdle: The Bain Marie

A bain marie is a fancy word for water bath. If you’ve ever used a double boiler, you’ve already used a bain marie. Not to be confused with a bahn mi, which is a Vietnamese sandwich. (Look, tired mom-brain takes over a LOT!!! I promise I know the difference, but I also promise I don’t always get enough sleep!)

It may seem like an easy thing to fill a roasting pan with hot water, but it comes with some pitfalls. Tip #1: Fill the pan as close to the oven as possible so you don’t have to carry splooshy water (technical term) across the kitchen. Don’t give yourself the space to splash the water into the custard. Tip #2: When in doubt, cover the custard before pouring the hot water. You could even stick the whole thing without water directly into the oven, place a cookie sheet over the tops of the ramekins as a splash guard, and pour the water into a gap you’ve created. Tip #3: Always have a third tip when you’re making a list of tips. Two doesn’t feel like enough to warrant a numbered list.

You’re looking for the water level to be around halfway up the ramekins. Remember how we gently heated the eggs so it wouldn’t result in scrambled eggs? Same thing here. The water makes sure an outer crust doesn’t form before the center is cooked, and the moisture from the water protects the tops of the custard.

Ready for the hardest part? Trying to figure out when they are done. This was the source of all my anxiety. The recipe said 40-45 minutes. Forty minutes came and went and I swear it was still all liquid. I reset my timer and checked every 5-10 minutes, and I concluded that I completely failed this creme brûlée journey. I looked online and EVERY other recipe used much less cream. I raised my fists in the air and dramatically shouted “NoooOOOoooOOOoooOOO” at Food Network, at Alton Brown, and at Belinda Carlisle who had ALL led me astray!

Finally, at about an hour or so, I figured I probably should just pull them from the oven, cool them, and chalk this up to a “learning” experience. That is why I don’t have a photo of the custards post-bake. I figured this was going to need a remake. The tops looked thoroughly hammered, the centers still almost liquid. I could have cried.

Then, something magical happened. I started to cool the custards to a point where I could put them in the fridge (I try to finish all failed attempts for the sake of science and progress) and they started to feel set! Then, of course, I was certain I’d over-baked them. I decided to chill them completely, brûlée one, and just see how bad it was.

I took my new blow torch toy, dumped some sugar on that bad boy, and embraced my inner pyro while the delightful smell of burnt sugar filled the air! I love that smell!! Waiting the few minutes to let the sugar harden up was tough!

Finally, the moment of truth! What would the texture be? Heart pounding, I took the back of a spoon and tap-tap-tapped the sugary crust to break it up. I dipped my spoon in, and THE CUSTARD WAS PERFECT!!! Heaven must be a place on earth, because some sort of baking angel was looking over my shoulder that night! The vanilla flavor was just right, the custard was silky and smooth, and though the brûlée top was a little thin on that first attempt (I have since perfected the amount of sugar to get that perfect thickness!), this creme brûlée was as good, if not better, than any I’ve had in a restaurant! My husband thought it was a little runny, but I propose the majority of restaurant creme brûlées are actually a tad over-set.

Best part? Next time I’m in the mood for creme brûlée, I will have a better idea of what to look for when the custard is done, and I won’t need to go out to dinner to satisfy that craving! And oooh baby, do you know what that’s worth? Feel free to tell me in the comments how long it took to get the song out of your head! 😉

Creme Brulee

October 3, 2019

Servings: 6 Ramekins (7-8 oz)

Prep: 15 min

Cook: 1 hr

Total: 3 hr 15 min

Difficulty: Anxiety Inducing, but only the first time!

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This totally indulgent vanilla custard with a burnt sugar topping that you can confidently make at home will now give you the chance to order something else for dessert at a restaurant! A trusted source for tried and true recipes, Alton Brown/Food Network would never steer me wrong!

By: Nina

Ingredients

1 quart Heavy Cream
1 Vanilla Bean, split and scraped (or 1 Tbsp Pure Vanilla Extract)
1/2 Cup Sugar
6 Large Egg Yolks
2 quarts hot water (for the Bain Marie)
Extra sugar for topping and brûlée-ing

Directions

Step 1 Preheat oven to 325F
Step 2 Place cream, vanilla bean, and bean pulp into a medium saucepan. (If using vanilla extract, like I did, you can remove a Tbsp of the heavy cream to keep the proportions even!) Over medium-high heat, bring mixture to a boil. Remove from heat, cover, and allow to sit for 15 minutes. Remove vanilla bean and reserve for another use
Step 3 In a medium bowl, whisk together 1/2 cup sugar and the egg yolks until combined and lightened in color. Add the heated cream a little at a time, stirring continuously. Pour the liquid into 6 (7 to 8 oz) ramekins. Place ramekins into a large roasting pan. Pour enough hot water into the pan to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Be careful no hot water gets into the ramekins!
Step 4 Bake until the custard is just set, but still wobbling in the middle. Anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour, depending on the depth of your ramekins! Base your bake on appearance and touch, not time!
Step 5 Remove ramekins from the roasting pan and refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to 3 days
Step 6 Before browning the sugar, remove from the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, gently patting with a paper towel to remove any excess condensation. Top custard with an even and generous layer of sugar
Step 7 Using a kitchen torch (or your oven’s broiler*) melt the sugar until it browns. Allow the sugar to cool and harden before serving