Skip to content

Crème Brûlée I

This recipe for crème brûlée should provide a crackly crust over a cold custard, balanced in sweetness, egg and cream content. The procedure is due to Dawn Yanagihara. For additional information on the dish, see the crème brûlée disambiguation page.

No ratings yet
France

Known as a French recipe, with similar versions prepared across other nations.

Ingredients 5 ingredients

  1. 1.4 L (2 ½ pints / 6 cups) / 1.4 kg Heavy cream, cold
  2. 240 ml (1 cup) / 9 oz Granulated sugar
  3. 2 ea. Vanilla pods
  4. 18 ea. Egg yolks
  5. 60 ml (12 tsp) Demerara, turbinado, or granulated sugar

Cook safely

Keep children and pets away from the hob and the oven, and keep oven gloves and a lid within reach.

  • Oven and hot trays. Use dry oven gloves for trays and dishes: a hot tray looks just like a cold one. Open the oven door away from your face and let the first rush of heat out.
  • Boiling water and steam. Turn pan handles inward, away from the edge of the hob. Lift lids away from you, and pour hot water away from your body: steam burns too.
  • Grill and open flame. Keep sleeves, hair and tea towels away from the flame, and stay with the grill while it's lit. Barbecue outdoors only, never in a closed space.
  • Flambéing. Pour the alcohol off the heat, never straight from the bottle, and light it with a long match, leaning back. Keep a lid close to put the flames out.
  • Hot sugar. Hot sugar sticks to skin and burns far hotter than boiling water: don't touch or taste it. Keep a bowl of cold water close, and keep children away while it cooks.
  • Sharp knives. Cut on a board that doesn't slip (a damp cloth under it helps), and curl the fingers of the hand that holds the food.

Method

  1. With the oven rack adjusted to its lower middle position, preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C). Fold a kitchen towel to cover the bottom of a large roasting pan and arrange 12 ea. 5-ounce (150 ml) ramekins on the towel. The ramekins should not touch each other or the side of the roasting pan. If the roasting pan is not large enough, scale down the recipe.
  2. Combine 3 cups of the cream and sugar in a medium saucepan. With a paring knife, halve the vanilla beans lengthwise and scrape the seeds into the saucepan. Submerge the pods in the cream. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally to dissolve the sugar. Remove the saucepan from the heat and steep the mixture for 20 minutes to infuse the flavor.
  3. Meanwhile, separate the eggs, placing the yolks in a large bowl and storing the whites for another use. Bring a kettle of water to a boil. After the cream has steeped remove the pods and stir in the remaining 3 cups of cream to cool the mixture.
  4. Whisk the egg yolks until they are evenly combined. Add a cup of the cream mixture to the yolks and whisk until combined. Continue adding cups of cream and whisking until evenly colored. Pour the mixture through a fine mesh strainer into a second bowl. Ladle the mixture into the 12 ramekins.
  5. Place the roasting pan onto the oven rack and pour in boiling water until it reaches ⅔ the height of the ramekins. Do not splash water into the ramekins. Bake until an instant-read thermometer registers 170–175°F (77–79°C) or until the edges of the custard are set, with a spot in the center about the size of a quarter remaining wiggly. The baking time depends upon the height of the ramekins. If shallow, start checking at 30 minutes. Higher ramekins can take up to an hour to bake.
  6. Remove ramekins from roasting pan and cool to room temperature on a wire rack. Place on a shallow tray, cover with plastic wrap, and chill in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours. Before serving, uncover the ramekins and soak up any condensation with paper toweling. Spread 1 teaspoon turbinado sugar on each, tilting and tapping to spread the sugar evenly. Spread sugar only on the number of ramekins that will be served. The others can be stored for several days in the refrigerator for later use.
  7. Ignite a propane blowtorch and caramelize the sugar on each ramekin. Take care to direct the flame away from any ignitable material. Avoid the miniature butane torch since its flame is not adequate for uniform caramelization in a reasonable amount of time, and the finished dish may taste of butane. Re-chill the ramekins for not more than 45 minutes. A longer time leads to softening of the caramelized crust.
  8. Serve and enjoy!

Plating

Cookware for this recipe

  • Saucepan
  • Roasting tin
  • Baking dish
  • Mixing bowl
  • Whisk
  • Chef's knife
  • Wooden spoon
  • Ladle
  • Sieve
  • Kitchen thermometer
  • Kettle
Source CC-BY-SA-4.0
Credit

"Crème Brûlée I" from the Wikibooks Cookbook (https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Cr%C3%A8me_Br%C3%BBl%C3%A9e_I, revision 4658446), by its contributors (https://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Cookbook:Cr%C3%A8me_Br%C3%BBl%C3%A9e_I&action=history), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).

Revision 4658446

What was changed: Reformatted by FoodByNation from the wiki page: ingredients and steps extracted, links and templates removed, diet notes detected from the ingredients. This adaptation is also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.