Crème Brûlée

Crème brûlée is so dank. Crème brûlée makes you feel like you're in a restaurant. Crème brûlée has a lot of accent marks. And it's surprisingly easy to make. But let's be real, you do need a blow torch to do it. And I probably would've never made it had I not received one as a Christmas present. I just used the recipe that came with the thing, which also conveniently with 4 ramekins. At the same time, it's a delicate process. If you've seen a lot of Food Network, you've seen Bobby Flay rant about how you can't get ANY water in the rami kens... which is pretty hard considering they're in a WATER BATH! This recipe I followed the recipe exactly too (kind of), since baking is actually a science and I thought I would waste a lot of sugar and eggs otherwise.

Yeah, you want that.

How to make Crème brûlée:

• 1 cup Heavy Cream
• 1 cup Milk
• 1/4 Vanilla Bean (or, lets be real, 1 tsp Vanilla Extract)
• 3 Egg Yolks
• 1 Whole Egg
• 1/4 Cup Sugar
• Brown Sugar

1- Combine heavy cream, milk, and vanilla bean. Heat to boil. Remove from heat and steep 10 minutes with bean- or just let sit for 10 minutes without it. Careful here, because milk gets big when it boils. In other news, the stovetop now smells like glorious sweet vanilla.
2- With a mixer, combine the eggs and sugar. Add the milk mixture in a steady stream. Strain the mixture through a fine strainer and skim the foam. I'm not sure I did this, but I also had no bean.
3- Divide into 4 small ramekins set in a baking dish. At this point, I found it odd that I had way more of the mixture leftover and they gave me the recipe and 4 ramekins? So I used some little other little tiny bowls and they worked too.
4- Water Bath Time- Pour hot water around the ramekins until it comes about half-way up the sides. God speed on this one. Carrying this to the oven is a doozy... Bobby Flay would start yelling. Really, don't get water in the ramekins!
5- Bake on 325 degrees for about 25-30 minutes, until just set. They should tremble slightly.
6- Cover the tops with brown sugar. I also used white sugar in addition to the brown. A trick I learned on the interwebs: Pour a mound of sugar on top (more than you need) and tilt the ramekin until the whole surface has been covered. Dump the excess onto the next ramekin's top.
7-Caramalize with the blow torch!!!
You can save these for later by chilling them before torching. Bring to room temp before you want to eat, then torch em.

Some things you will need...

Action shot! That's a good lookin mixer!

 

Water bath

Add brown sugar... before I knew the fancy technique for the sugar.

Sugar-coated now.

Great gift. Sorry for the terrible nails.

Action shot! Again.

Finished product.

Yum. After I eat one... I want another one. So creamy... so sugary.

I made like 6 of these and just had them in the fridge for weeknight dinners. Fancy up anything. Hell, have one for lunch too if you want! Soo good.