Photography
julia calleo
my lavender blues
Creamy Creme Brulee
Valentines day. While people profess their undying love to one another, us singletons are reminded that we are still single and are on the road to having extreme liver failure or type 2 diabetes with the amount of sweets and alcohol we must inhale consume to make ourselves feel momentarily better for 24ish hours.
Or maybe that’s just me…….. in which case……. *awkward*
No, I’ve actually never appreciated this normandy beach invasion Hallmark holiday HOWEVER what I do appreciate is some fancy AF dessert. And a blowtorch.
Creamy Creme Brûlée. Even the words melt in your mouth. SO much fat. So much creamy goodness.
Oh and did I mention…. it’s gluten-free, so like…. it must be good for you…… 😉
Recipe Notes:
There is a whole lot of YOLK. I know. But boy is it worth it. Also don’t discard of the whites… just put them in a tupperware and store in the fridge. You can use these for an egg-white breakfast omelette… because you’ll probably need to watch your figure after you eat this… OR you can embrace the fat rolls (like I did) and make some meringue cookies.
Follow the steps, try not to skip around because you are in a hurry…. you’ll end up with a scrambled mess and barely any creamy custard to work with.
Chill time is key for letting the creme brulee reach it’s full texture potential.
You can purchase a blowtorch at walmart, target, bed bath, etc. They are only 20 dollar (holla) plus the butane which will run you around 10 dollars. OR you can broil the creme brûlée in the oven… but that isn’t any fun.
MAKE SURE to sugar the creme brûlée fairly well/evenly and to constantly move the torch back and forth as to not scorch the top layer. As you can see in my pictures (with the smaller ramekins) I purposely wanted to show you what not to do….. 🙁 Womp womp. You’re goal is for a nice golden brown layer instead of black spots. Refer to the cheesy heart.
And speaking of cheesy heart, I cut a little stencil out of aluminum foil to use as a guideline for pouring the sugar. IF you torch your custard with the aluminum foil, chances are that it will catch on fire. Mine did. No bueno. So for safety reasons you should probably keep a fire extinguisher near by…… also make sure not to do this close to a gas line (kaboom).
- 12 egg yolks
- 4 cups heavy cream
- ¾ cup granulated sugar + more for sprinkling
- 2½ tsp vanilla extract
- Pinch of Salt
- 6 cups boiled water
- Before you begin preheat your oven to 325 degrees and line a rimmed baking sheet with a dishcloth. Set aside.
- First in a small sauce pan over medium heat add 3 cups of cream, ¾ cup of sugar, salt & vanilla stirring every couple of minutes. Bring to a boil.
- Once mixture is boiling remove from heat, cover with a lid and let it sit for about 10 minutes.
- While mixture is steeping, in a large bowl add your egg yolks and whisk together until they become slightly foamy, set aside.
- Once cream mixture has finished steeping add the additional 1 cup of heavy cream to the mix and stir until blended.
- Slowly pour cream mixture into whisked eggs, and continue to whisk as you add the cream. You want to temper the eggs here and not scramble them.
- Once cream and egg mixture is fully whisked together, using a fine mesh strainer pour the egg/cream mix through into a large measuring bowl (or whatever you have available for easy pouring). This will make sure no scrambled chunky bits are in your creme brûlée, and you'll have a nice smooth creamy custard.
- Place your ramekins (or whatever you are using) on the dish towel that you set in the rimmed baking sheet. Pour custard into each ramekin until it almost reaches the top (but not quite, you don't want to spill when transferring into oven).
- Once ramekins are filled with custard place into the preheated oven and VERY carefully pour your boiling water directly onto baking sheet w/ towel, making sure not to get any boiling water in the custard. This will create a nice water bath for the creme brûlée while it sets.
- Depending on if you are using small ramekins, or a large dish, start checking for doneness at 25 minutes. You'll want to remove from the oven right when the center of the custard is just set (about 175 degrees).
- Transfer the ramekins to a wire rack and let cool to room temperature about 1½ hours. Then cover tightly with plastic wrap and place in fridge for at least another 2 hours.
- Once custard has cooled you'll remove from fridge and sprinkle about 1½ tsp of sugar on top of each (evenly). Take your blowtorch, and waving back and forth caramelize the sugar until you achieve a nice golden brown color.
- Serve (or if you want them to be cold, place back in fridge for another 20 minutes and then serve).
i just bought a kitchen blowtorch and can’t wait to try it out, think i might try this dessert minus the heart shape……. i can’t imagine that going over well