Crème brûlée

So here’s the thing. I’ve made crème brûlée and I’m rather worn out, so luckily for you, I won’t go on too long today. I made it on so-called Black Friday, which I’m very pleased about. I don’t want to get swept up in shopping fever; I simply prefer buying things when I need them.

Besides, I still think this quote perfectly sums up what most people do that day. And not just most people here — probably around the world, not only in Poland. But we shouldn’t forget those, and there are a great many of them, for whom neither Black Friday nor crème brûlée exists, because every day they struggle to make sure that not just Friday, but every day of their lives, isn’t truly BLACK.

So I recommend buying something you can afford — a few egg yolks, whipping cream, a little vanilla and some sugar — and making what your body needs, with your own money, not on any sort of lease, to impress the people who really matter to you. Sometimes it’s enough to impress yourself 🙂 Because we like little pleasures, don’t we?

Right, I was supposed to keep this short, but it’s about to get long. One very important thing: to make this crème brûlée turn out exactly as you expect, with that fantastic combination of cold custard and a warm caramel crust, you need proper equipment. Proper doesn’t mean expensive. You simply need a gas blowtorch to caramelise the sugar on top like a professional.

I didn’t have one, but my dad bought me one. Actually, he bought one for himself first — definitely not for crème brûlée, since he kept it in the garage — but when I found it, he bought one for me too. So this crème brûlée basically came about thanks to my dad. When I tried caramelising the sugar in the oven, as some people suggest, I didn’t get crème brûlée, just crème bleurgh.

And what does real crème brûlée sound like, with appreciative noises in the background? Like this:

So buy yourselves a gas blowtorch, or ask your dad — it costs at most 15 – 20 zł, plus a few złoty for gas — and treat yourselves. Black-Friday good. Highly recommended.

At a glance:

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Baking time: 1 hour and 25 minutes

Oven temperature: 125 degrees Celsius

Waiting time in the fridge: overnight, or at least 7 hours

Serves: 5 – 6 small portions here

Calories: I’m not going to crack jokes — or yolks — at your expense: it HAS them

Ingredients for a very good crème brûlée:

• 5 hen’s egg yolks
• 400 grams cream, 36% fat (two cartons of 200 grams each)
• 1 glass of milk, 0.5% fat
• 1 small bottle of vanilla extract — 20 ml (French; available at Leclerc)
• 1 packet of vanilla sugar (a 20-gram packet; importantly, with vanilla, not vanillin)
• half a glass of fine sugar (white or cane sugar; it makes no difference to the quality or anything else)
• 2 – 3 tablespoons fine cane sugar (for the caramel crust)

Crème brûlée recipe for 5 – 6 people:

Making the dessert itself isn’t particularly difficult, but it is time-consuming. Meaning there’s a long wait before you can eat it. Anyway, first I poured the 36% dessert cream, which was quite thick, into a saucepan and added a glass of milk. I mixed it thoroughly and heated it until it was hot and fairly smooth, without lumps or differences in consistency. Don’t worry if there are a few lumps, though: we’ll strain it later anyway. I added the vanilla sugar and the small bottle of vanilla extract. I heated it a little longer, without letting it boil, and set it aside to cool.

I put the yolks from 5 hen’s eggs into a medium bowl — preferably one with a pouring spout, as we’ll be pouring into small dishes later — and added half a glass of fine sugar. I stirred with a whisk, but only until combined.

Once the cream, milk and vanilla mixture had cooled down, I slowly poured it into the yolks and sugar, whisking all the time. After adding it all, I stirred thoroughly to make sure the sugar had completely dissolved.

I poured the mixture into the little dishes shown in the photograph, which are ideal for crème brûlée, importantly passing it through a fine sieve. Otherwise, the custard will be lumpy and have the wrong texture. We don’t want that.

I preheated the oven to 120 degrees Celsius, with top and bottom heat. I put my crème brûlée dishes into a larger metal baking tin and poured boiling water into the tin until it came about 2/3 of the way up the dishes. Yes, this matters: baking in a water bath makes the custard perfectly smooth and… perfectly creamy 🙂

I put the tin in the oven and baked for about 1 hour and 25 minutes. Keep an eye on it: it’s important that the custard doesn’t overbake — it shouldn’t brown — but it mustn’t be too watery either. Once baked, it should be like… jelly, or a firmly set milk pudding.

Leave the baked crème brûlée to cool, then put it in the fridge, preferably overnight. Once chilled, use kitchen paper to remove any thin layer of moisture that may have formed on top. Then sprinkle evenly with a fairly thin layer of fine cane sugar and use your proper gas blowtorch to create a hard caramel crust. The video shows the technique, perhaps not perfectly, but still 😉

You can decorate the finished crème brûlée however you like, ideally with mint leaves and some small fruit. This time, all I had were blueberries. They work perfectly too. And there you have it: a delicious French dessert, ready to eat. Enjoy!