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Whenever I go to restaurants, I am always hesitant to take a Crème Brulée.
I am rarely satisfied with what arrives at the table.
It is either too liquidy, too sweet or too hot.
Call me picky but a perfect Crème Brulée is a rich,
rather thick custard that should be cold when served,
topped with a layer of hard caramel.
The vanilla Crème Brulée recipe that I am going to show you today
is one of my favourites.
The secret is to use pure vanilla extract or even better vanilla bean.
To make a vanilla Crème Brulée, you will need
egg yolks, whipping cream- minimum 33% of fat,
sugar, pure vanilla extract or vanilla bean
and extra sugar for the caramelising process.
Put the cream in a saucepan. Add the vanilla.
So for the vanilla bean, I am going to cut it in half
because that would be too much for one cup of cream.
Cut the vanilla bean in half. Pick up the seeds.
All the little seeds are inside the vanilla bean. So you have to pick them up.
Just like so. So with the point of the knife,
just push them down into the cream.
Now this is all the flavour.
And do the same thing here for the other half. So just scrape.
Leave the vanilla bean in the cream and bring it to a boil on low heat.
But to get started, turn on your oven at 350 degrees F,
we will turn it down later on at 325.
And fill your kettle and bring it to a boil.
Then turn your cream on medium heat to bring it to a boil.
Separate the yolk from the white.
So pass the yolk from one shell to the other.
Cut the membrane from the white.
Bring the cream to a boil.
But you want the real boil, you know, when it starts to get up.
So it’s almost ready here.
But you want to have both sides from the heat touching each other.
In pastry, I call that the kiss. Here we go.
So make sure that the cream kiss. So that’s pretty good.
So turn it off before it boils over. And let’s bring it to the station.
Add the sugar to the egg yolks.
Whisk to incorporate the sugar in egg yolks, but don’t over whisk.
Just whisk gently, just to combine gently.
And pour the boiling cream over the yolks.
With your whisk, grab all the little vanilla bean.
Whisk gently to make sure that the yolk’s mixture has been dissolved.
A good way to check if your yolks are well dissolved
is to look at the extremity of the whisk. Right here.
So you are moving the whisk at the bottom of the bowl
and if you don’t see any evidence of yolks, it’s fine.
Then pick up the vanilla bean
and now it has been tenderised a little bit by the boiling process.
So just scrape a little bit more, the seeds.
Then skim the foam in the upper bowl with a skimmer.
Also its not many.
If you were over whisking your yolk, you will have a lot of foam.
So then you are going to lose some custard. Good.
And fill a ramekin.
So the Crème Brulée ramekin is usually something flat,
but you may also use a regular ramekin.
The only thing is it will take more time to cook, about 10 minutes extra.
Then fill the ramekins,
making sure that you are taking the bottom
of the custard because all the vanilla beans are there.
You see, the bottom of the bowl?
This is pure gold.
Depending on the size of your ramekins, the recipe will make 2-3 Crème Brulées.
Then with the point of the knife, pop the upper pores if any.
Bake the Crème Brulée in your preheated oven
at 325 degrees F on bake, not on convection; bake
because the fan will shake the water and that will create air pockets in the custard.
Pour the boiling water into the pan,
making sure not to put any water into the custard.
Slowly. So the water has to be at the same level as the custard.
Good. Place the pan in the centre of the oven.
Bake the Crème Brulées at 325 degrees F for about 30 minutes.
Let’s check the Crème Brulée. It’s still vigouring little bit.
So another 5.
Ok the Crème Brulée are done. They don’t shake any more.
So let’s take them out. I am using a spatula under.
Allow the Crème Brulées to cool down
about 10 minutes at the room temperature.
Then refrigerate them for about 3 hours.
Our Crème Brulées are cold. They have been in the refrigerator for about 3 hours.
So it’s time now to burn them.
So sprinkle the sugar over, like about a teaspoon of sugar.
Move the sugar to the edge. Good.
So make sure you have a little bit of extra sugar in the centre of the Crème Brulée.
And then you must use a blowtorch to caramelise evenly
the top to make a nice, hard caramel over the Crème Brulée.
If you are thinking to use a broiler, just place the sugar around
and put it under the broiler. It won’t work.
What will happen truly is, it will burn here and there,
the sugar won’t caramelise evenly. And worst of all, the custard will heat up.
So you want to keep it cold, and it will be just a mess.
So you must use a blowtorch to make a nice Crème Brulée.
So turn it on. Hold the Crème Brulée at an angle,
start at the centre and caramelise the sugar.
And then, run the caramel. You see.
So just have a nice golden brown caramel over.
Upto the edge. So do it nicely.
If you are making several Crème Brulée like 6 or 8,
this is something you can do in advance and then place them back in the fridge.
When your Crème Brulées have been burned,
allow them to cool down to wait a couple of minutes before eating them
and the sugar should be crusted like this.
You hear that crust? This is the crust of the sugar, ok.
Because the sugar has hardened on the top, very nice.
Now, today we made vanilla Crème Brulée.
But there is nothing wrong to make a plain Crème Brulée
or a Crème Brulée with cinnamon and grand marnier,
or a saffron Crème Brulée, or even better,
a star anise Crème Brulée, crush them with a pestle and mortar,
place them in the cream, bring it to a boil.
Let infuse for a few minutes, then strain it over your egg yolk mixture
and you have a beautiful star anise Crème Brulée.
And you could also do the same with cardamom. Fantastic!
There is many, many flavouring you can use to make Crème Brulée.
What about espresso Crème Brulée?
Do a plain Crème Brulée, but in the cream put a espresso powder,
you know that instant espresso powder from Italy.
Great! Just experiment! Be wild!
But first make a perfect one,
and then you can have fun making Crème Brulée at home.
Bon appétit!