Creme brulee : a Wonderful traditional French dessert

With eggs, sugar and milk (or cream) you can prepare an infinite number of pastry recipes applying different techniques to mix and cook them, although the most common is to use them to make a cream. In this case, it is a classic French dessert closely related to Catalan cream and I am going to tell you why.
Is creme brulee recipe it is a traditional french dessert consisting of a custard curdled in the oven and on which a layer of sugar is caramelized with a torch when it is ready, thus achieving an exquisite contrast of crunchy and creamy textures.
His name translates as burnt cream Precisely for this reason and in the recipe you will know all the tips and tricks to get it to have the best texture, without lumps and very creamy and also in a very simple way.
If you like this recipe, surely you are also interested in preparing the Traditional Catalan cream with its burnt sugar waves homemade egg custard. Also with these simple ingredients the homemade pastry cream wave homemade creamy custard.
And of course we do not forget the traditional homemade egg flan wave homemade fried milk.
Ingredients to prepare crème brûlée, a traditional French dessert (6 servings):
- 5 egg yolks.
- 65 gr white sugar and more sugar to caramelize the surface at the end.
- 500 ml of whipping cream with a minimum of 35% fat.
- 1/2 vanilla pod.
- A pinch of salt.
For this recipe I have used 6 individual molds of 9 cm in diameter and 5 cm in height, they are ideal for this type of dessert.
Preparation, how to make the recipe for crème brûlée, a traditional French dessert:
- open the pod vanilla in the middle and scrape the inside with a knife to keep the seeds, you will see that they are little black balls and they are very aromatic.
- In a saucepan, pour the cream together with the seeds of vanilla and also the pod and put it on medium heat.
- When it starts to boil, remove the saucepan from the heat and let it rest for 10 minutes so that the cream is well flavored with the vanilla. After that time she removes the pod from vanilla.
- Turn on the oven with heat up and down at 160ºC (without fan) and insert a baking tray with a 2 or 3 cm depth into it at medium height. Water to prepare the bain-marie in which we are going to cook the crème brûlée. The tray should then fit the 6 individual containers in which we are going to distribute it.
- while cracking the eggsreserve the clear for another elaboration and put the yolks in a bowl along with sugar and the pinch of Salt.
- With some manual rods and without beating too much, simply mix the ingredients for 4 or 5 minutes so that the sugar dissolves and the mixture is yellow in color and creamy in texture.
- throw a little cream over the bowl with yolks and the sugar without stopping to remove with the rods.
- When the mixture has a homogeneous color, add all the cream to the bowl and mix until cream again be homogeneous.
- check the cream in a jug to make it easier for you to distribute it in the individual molds but put a strainer on top to pass the mixture through it and thus catch any lumps that may have occurred, especially due to the cream.
- Distribute the mixture creme brulee in the 6 individual molds or ramekins that you are going to use.
- Put the molds in the tray with water that we had in the oven, keep the temperature and bake them for 1 hour.
- When the time is up, open the oven but do not remove the molds yet, leave them as they are for 10 or 15 minutes so that they settle and gradually drop the temperature.
- Remove the tray from the oven and place the individual containers on a wire rack to cool to room temperature.
- When they are cold, put them in the fridge and let them rest for at least 4 hours, although the ideal is to leave them overnight.
- To caramelize the surface, add a layer of White sugar above, that it is neither too thick nor too thin to prevent it from burning immediately.
- Pass the kitchen torch until the sugar melts and caramelizes, taking on a nice golden color.
Time: 1 hour and 30 minutes plus cooling time
difficulty: easy
Serve and taste:
I like it a lot caramelize the sugar just before serving the crème brûlée, I just pour the sugar layer, I blow it and wait at least 3 or 4 minutes for it to cool and crisp since the moment to break that caramel with the spoon is fantastic. You may keep it 3 or 4 days in the fridge without problems and personally when I like it the most is when it has been made for a couple of days, I feel that its flavor is more intense and the texture is creamier and more settled.
Plunging the spoon into this cream after breaking the caramel is a pleasure for the eyes and then for the palate as the contrast of crunchy and creamy textures is irresistible. Enjoy this classic French dessert of authentic… scandal!
Variations on the recipe for crème brûlée, a traditional French dessert:
You can flavor the crème brûlée in another way, for example with a sprig of cinnamon or including the peel of some citruspersonally with lemon is how I like it the most.
It is delicious just the way it is, but accompanying the crème brûlée with fresh fruit is a success, especially if it is berries such as blueberries, strawberries or raspberries.
Tips:
If you don’t have a torch You can turn on the oven grill at 220ºC and when it reaches the temperature, insert the molds in the oven as high as possible and wait only 2 or 3 minutes for the sugar to melt and caramelize.
It is important that the cream is not excessively hot when mixed with the yolks, as these could curdle and we would have to discard the mixture as we cannot achieve the texture we are looking for. That is why the cream is allowed to rest a bit off the heat and then a small amount is mixed first (3 or 4 tablespoons would be enough) to begin to equalize the temperature of both mixtures and that there is no abrupt contrast.