Creme Brûlée

Since I have so much free time since losing my job and having to drop out of grad school I decided I wanted to take up cooking more seriously. Among other things. (I also have goals for taking up sewing again and to write more)

Well recently I came across a very appealing and seemingly easy to do creme brûlée recipe. And imagine my luck when I realized I had everything necessary minus a kitchen torch (which they're pretty cheap actually) and today I had the energy to be able to make the creme brûlée!

In trying to get them into the baby oven we have, I spilt water into one of the ramekins.  When I took it out the oven it was obviously ruined, so I figured to eat it then and there. Best to make sure they taste good before wasting anymore time, am I right?

 For something with so many accent marks, I thought it would be very difficult to make, but surprisingly the hardest part was separating the egg yolks from the whites.  After they baked for a half hour, I was nervous when the bigger ones hadn't set right (they still had a watery jiggle to them as opposed to the preferred gelatin like jiggle).  But eventually I had to take them out or they'd brown.  Luckily a few hours in the fridge righted things quickly enough.  I had to wait until dinner to add the sugar and make the glass like top and really enjoy the creme brûlée I spent all day making.

Of course, I burned some of it, and for sure put too much sugar, but overall- an excellent outcome.

The recipe I used is from The Pioneer Woman: (this recipe has shallow ramekins in mind, like the one I messed up on, and not the deep ones like in the final image.  That is most important when considering how much sugar to put on top)

Ingredients

• 4 cups Heavy Cream
• 1 whole Vanilla Bean OR 1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract OR 1 Tablespoon Vanilla Paste
• 10 whole Egg Yolks
• 3/4 cups Sugar
• 6 Tablespoons Superfine (Baker's) Sugar

Preparation Instructions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Pour the cream into the saucepan. Add vanilla (whichever product you're using) and simmer over medium-low heat.

Whip egg yolks with the sugar until pale yellow and thick.

Strain cream using a fine mesh strainer.

Whip yolks while you very slowly drizzle in 1 cup of warm cream. Go slowly so as not to cook the eggs! Once the first cup is added, you can add the rest of the cream slowly.

Place ramekins onto a rimmed baking sheet. Pour custard mixture into ramekins. Pour water in bottom of baking sheet until it comes halfway up the ramekins. Bake for 30 minutes, or until just set. Do not allow to get brown.

Cool ramekins on countertop, then chill for at least 2-3 hours, covered in plastic wrap.

To serve, sprinkle 1 tablespoon over each ramekin of custard. Use a kitchen torch to quickly (but carefully) brown the sugar. There should be a thin, crisp surface of burned sugar on the top.

Serve immediately!

(also not mentioned is the recommendation to scrape off the foam that is created after adding cream to eggs before adding to ramekins.)