Crème Brûlée

This recipe is from John Burton Race's book, French Leave. It was my first crack at making Crème brûlée, and I expected it to be difficult, but it was surprisingly easy! Seriously, I wouldn't say it if it wasn't true. It amazes me that I have had so many bad brûlées at restaurants in the past (seriously - scrambled egg consistency at a high end restaurant that I won't name!). This is going to be a bad bad thing for me, as I will likely start keeping full cream in my fridge at all times and make this very regularly. Methinks that will not help me on the road to losing the baby weight...

Crème Brûlée (Serves 4):
2 egg yolks
90 grams caster sugar (seeing as we are in North America I used fine berry sugar)
1 vanilla pod (I used vanilla extract about a teaspoon)
70 mL milk
175 mL double cream

Put the egg yolks and 40g of the sugar into a bowl with the vanilla and whisk to a smooth paste. Add the milk, whisk in the cream (thicken a bit, but it won't be like whipped cream), pour into four ramekins and refrigerate for an hour before cooking.

Preheat the oven to 300F/150C and put the ramekins in a shallow pan filled with water to a depth of about 2.5 cm (1 inch) as shown. The brûlées will take about an hour in the oven to set. When cooked, remove from the oven and let the brûlées cool to room temperature.


When you are about ready to serve, sprinkle the tops with the remaining sugar and put them either under a very hot broiler or use a torch to caramelize the sugar. Using high heat is important because you want to create the sugar crust on top, but not warm the custard through and make it runny. Serve right away.

This is so good I am thinking about making it for breakfast now, thank goodness I don't have any cream on hand and I have a baby that will be back up to eat again any second!