Creme Brûlée Recipe

Creme Brûlée, a true classic, is one of those very simple yet outstandingly good deserts, so it should be part of any good chefs repertoire. This is one of the first desserts that I ever learned how to prepare and it is still one of the most requested. So here is the basic recipe, which is also the base for creme anglaise, praline cake, and eggnog, among other uses.

Please feel free to play with the recipe and be creative. For example, you can add some of espresso and chocolate and have Mocha Creme Brûlées. You could add strawberry simple syrup and instead of the sugar crust, you could top it with a shortbread cookie for Strawberry Shortcake Creme Brûlées. You could flavor the custard with mango and top with macadamia brittle and have a Caribbean creme brûlée on a hot summer day. You could add a little cinnamon and nutmeg at christmas time to make Eggnog Creme Brûlées. You get the idea, the sky is the limit. Have fun creating and post what you made in a comment on this recipes, to inspire others.

Note: It is important to realize that these recipes are merely guidelines to follow. They'll taste great as they are, but I encourage you to play with them and make the recipes your own.

Note: It is good practice to read the entire recipe, while paying particular attention to the "Notes", before you try to make the dish, as there are often subtleties that can be easily overlooked, which sometimes, can make all the difference in the world for the outcome. 

Makes 4-8 servings, depending on cup size size.

Skill Level: Beginner

Prep time about 20 minutes.

Cook Time about 40-50 minutes.

Ingredients:

• 6 egg yolks
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 pint heavy whipping cream
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract (DO NOT USE IMITATION) or ½ vanilla bean.

Tools Needed:

• Large Stock Pot
• 1 medium bowl
• Whisk
• Creme brûlée dishes or coffee cups or any container that can go in the oven.
• Water pan
• Spoon or 1-2 ounce ladle
• 4-6 ounce ladle
• Medium plastic container
• 4-8 oven safe earthenware containers

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Separate eggs by cracking the egg shell into two haves and move the egg yolk between the two half shells. This method seems a bit difficult at first, but with practice, you'll soon see this is the most efficient method for egg separation.

Note: You can discard the egg whites or use them for another recipe. They'll last 3-4 days in the fridge. You can use them to make mayonnaise, egg white omelets, meringue, etc...

Add sugar and vanilla to the yolks.

Note: If you use a vanilla bean, cut the husk in ½ lengthwise, and scrape out the seeds (The seeds are minuscule, so they will resemble a black paste then scraped out). Toss the seeds in with the heavy cream as you bring it to a boil. Take the husks and put them in a container with some sugar (Also place the unused ½ of the vanilla bean in with the sugar). In a few weeks time, you will have 'vanilla sugar'. One whole bean husk will flavor about 3 cups if sugar.

Note: Whole, unused vanilla beans can be stored in your vanilla sugar for a few weeks prior to use. The beans will impart some of their essential oils into the sugar, imbuing it with more nature vanilla flavor. DO NOT store whole beans in the sugar long-term, as they will dry out and become unusable. If you bought whole vanilla beans, for long-term storage, place the unused beans in your refrigerator. 

Whisk eggs and sugar until creamy (near ribbon stage).

Bring the cream to a hard boil.

Note: Cream expands quite a bit when it comes to a boil, so using a large stock pot avoids boil over and messes.

Pour a little cream into the eggs while whisking. This tempers the eggs so they do not scramble when you add them to the cream.

After the eggs have been tempered, you can pour them into the cream, whisking the whole time.

Place in to a container to cool.

Use a spoon or a small 1-2 ounce ladle to skim off any remaining foam on the top of the custard.

Now, this is a real creme brûlée ramekin and you should use them if you have them, but if you don't have any, don't worry. Just about any oven safe earthenware container will work.

I used coffee cups. Now, we need to cook the creme brûlées in a water bath, called a bain-marie, so I chose a medium rondo pan. 

Use a ladle to portion out the creme brûlée, so they are all the same size and will therefore cook evenly. Moreover, you don't want air bubbles in the custard, so pouring out of a ladle gives you more control over the speed of the pour. The slower you pour, the less chance for air bubbles.

You want to fill the pan with water, until the level of the water is roughly equal to the level of the custard in their containers. 

Note: If the traditional ramekins are used, you'll want to set them on the water pans in the oven, with the rack pulled out. Fill the ramekins with the custard and carefully slide the rack back into the oven. Then fill the pan with water, in place. With these type of ramekins, if you have to move them after the water has been added, you run the risk of having water slosh into the custard, ruining it. Additionally, when the brûlées are done, turn the oven off, open the door and let the them cool in place. Once cool, you can carefully lift them out the water by hand.

Since the ladle and containers I chose made five creme brûlées, I put the fifth one in a small sauce pot. Because we used coffee cups and a rondo/sauce pot, we can easily fill everything ahead of time and pop them in the oven. Much easier that using the real ramekins. 

Creme Brûlées fresh out the oven.

You want to begin checking on them at about 30-35 minutes into the cooking process. Grab the edge of the pan and gently shake, as to not slosh the water, but enough to make the custard jiggle. When the brûlées have a firm jiggle, they are done. This is usually about 40-45 minutes total cook time.

Note: Do not over cook. If you shake the pan and the brûlées are completely stiff, they are ruined. If the brûlées have browned on top, they are ruined. In either case, the eggs in the custard will have scrambled. But, if you think you'd like creme brûlée flavored scrambled eggs, then by all means eat the ruined ones :)

Note: Wait until they have cooled to room temperature before wrapping individually.

Now comes the hard part: you must refrigerate them for 5-7 hours, or over night, before they are ready for the sugar crust.

Note: You must let them cool down to room temperature before placing them in the refrigerator. They will keep for about 4-6 days.

After the creme brûlées have chilled, sprinkle about a teaspoon and a half of brown sugar over the top.

Note: for this diameter, one packet of Sugar in the Raw, or even white sugar, will do nicely. For larger diameter, traditional ramekins, use 2 packets. 






Use a spoon to smooth out and evenly spread the sugar.

Now you need a torch, a basic propane torch from the hardware store will do. I am using a butane torch made for creme brûlées.









Use the torch to melt the sugar. Move the torch around in small circles, never staying in one spot for very long. The sugar should be completely liquified, but hot burned.

Once the sugar is caramelized, serve immediately.

Here is a Creme Brûlée I made in the correct ramekin, garnished with some raspberries and mint.

Enjoy

Key Lime Pie

I want to apologize, in advance, for this recipe not being as photographically complete as I'd have liked, but I was at a family reunion and there was such great kitchen banter between all the other cooks, that I simply forgot to take photos of some of the steps.

That being said, with this recipe, I thought it would be a good time to introduce the idea that you can make many recipes despite not having all the correct equipment and the results will be the same as if you did.

So, I decided to pretend I didn't have any pie pans. Thus, I foraged around the kitchen and found a cake pan and a small square baking pan, then proceed with the recipe as normal.

The lesson in this is, don't ever stop yourself from making a recipe because you don't have the exact right equipment, just be a little creative with what you do have and forge ahead.

Note: It is important to realize that these recipes are merely guidelines to follow. They'll taste great as they are, but I encourage you to play with them and make the recipes your own.

Note: It is good practice to read the entire recipe, while paying particular attention to the "Notes", before you try to make the dish, as there are often subtleties that can be easily overlooked, which sometimes, can make all the difference in the world for the outcome. 

Makes 2 Large Pies or 3 pies in Standard Disposable Tin Pie Pans

Skill Level: Intermediate/Advanced

Prep time about 30 minutes.

Cook Time about 30 minutes.

Ingredients:

• 4 cans of sweetened condensed milk
• 3/4 bottle of Nellie & Joe's Key West Lime Juice
• 1 bag of fresh Key Limes (Garnish)
• 2 Limes
• 2 dozen eggs (You may not need all of them)
• Sugar
• Cream of Tartar
• Graham Crackers or Graham Cracker Crumbs
• 1/2 pound butter

Tools Needed:

• Kitchen Aid or Hand Mixer
• Pie Pans
• Small Sauce pot
• Large metal bowl
• Large Plastic Bowl
• Rubber Spatula
• Small Spoon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

In a bowl, make a 3 to 1 mixture of graham cracker crumbs and sugar, respectively.

Note: 3 cups graham to 1 cup sugar is about 1 large pie pan.

In this recipe, I took 1 box of graham crackers,  removed the individual packs of crackers, placed each in a doubled up Walmart bag and used a bottle of spaghetti sauce to pound them into crumbs. Then poured the graham crumbs through a colander to remove any large chunks.

Separate your eggs until you have exactly 500 milliliters of egg whites.

Note: Make sure that you do NOT GET ONE SINGLE DROP of egg yolk into the egg whites, as this will RUIN the egg whites for making the meringue. If you do get yolk in the whites, finish measuring out the 500 milliliters, to get your egg yolks for the custard, then toss the egg whites and begin again. You must have 500 milliliters of egg whites for the meringue. The yolks obtained this time are waste, unless you want to make another recipe that just calls for yoks, like Cème Brûlée (Recipe is coming soon!).

Note: Why 500 milliliters of egg whites you ask? It is because giving a number of eggs, like "seperate 16 eggs," is just plain stupid, because ALL eggs are slightly different in size, and I have seen as few as 10 eggs to make 500 milliliters and as many 18. So using 500 milliliters ensures you get the correct amount of egg every time, no matter the size of the eggs you use.


In a plastic bowl, mix the 4 cans of sweetened condensed milk and egg yolks. DO NOT ADD THE KEY LIME JUICE YET. Let mixture come to room temperature.


Note: A plastic bowl is used as we will be adding acid to the mixture and you don't want it reacting with a metal bowl, negatively affecting the flavor. 

In a small sauce pot, place your butter on low/medium heat to melt.

Note: You can leave the wrapper on the butter and remove when butter is melted. This is particularly useful when you have to melt many sticks/pounds of butter. I have found, if you are doing several pounds of butter, you can wait until the butter is completely melted and you can use a slotted spoon or a fryer scoop/skimmer to easily and quickly remove all the wrappers. 

Mix melted butter and the graham/sugar mixture until the mix will hold together when compressed, but does not look or feel oily. Evenly spread mixture in the pans, making crust about 1/2 inch thick. Bake for about 15 minutes.

Note: If the mixture is too oily, then when you bake them, the crust will sluff off the sides of your pan. If this happens, and you act quickly enough, you can use a spoon to push the sides back up before the crust begins to harden. 

In a Kitchen Aid bowl, add the 500 milliliters of egg whites, 2 1/4 cups sugar, and 1 tablespoon of cream of tartar. Let come to room temperature.

Note: You can use a hand mixer to whip the meringue, it just takes a lot longer.

Note: Let egg whites come to room temperature before making the meringue.

After about 15 minutes, your crusts should look like this. Let cool.

When crusts have cooled, you are ready to add lime juice to the egg yolk and sweetened condensed milk mixture. As you mix the Key Lime juice in, you will notice the custard thicken.

Note: Add about 3/4 of the bottle of Nellie & Joe's and add the juice of 2 fresh regular limes. 

Immediately pour the custard into the cooled pie crusts. 

Place pies in 350 degree oven and bake for approximately 15 minutes.

Note: Depending on your oven, this can vary wildly. So the best approach is, after 10 minutes, give the pies a jiggle. You want the pies to be mostly firm, with maybe the slightest jiggle left in the very center of the pie.

Note: If you see any signs of browning or dull hardened areas on the pie, you have over cooked it. The pies should be as bright and shiny when they are finished as they were before they were cooked.

While the pies are baking, turn the Kitchen Aid on high. The meringue will take about the same amount of time as the custards take to bake.

As the meringue is whipping, as it rises in the bowl, it is a good idea to move the whisk up and down to make sure the meringue is well mixed.

Note: With a Stand Mixer, you can tilt the motor back and forth to achieve this.

Note: There are 2 types of Kitchen Aid mixers: 

1. the Commercial Style mixer (I highly recommend this version), which has a lever that moves the bowl up and down 
2. the Stand Mixer (pictured), which has a hinge at the back, allowing the entire motor assembly to tilt out of the way, making The Stand Mixers far less versatile.

After the meringue becomes thick and shiny, stop the mixer and take a spoon and do a peak test. If the peak falls back on itself, continue mixing. 

Note: This is the trickiest part of the whole recipe as from this stage the meringue can quickly become over whipped and ruined, so begin peak testing often. 

When your meringue is perfect, it will be very shiny and very stiff. Dipping a spoon in and out will effortlessly produce beautiful peaks.

Note: The smaller the spoon, the more peaks you'll have and the prettier the pies will be.

Note: If the peaks are breaking, or are hard to tease out, the meringue is over whipped.



The pies and meringue should be ready about the same time. Immediately spread the meringue onto pies, creating a smooth dome shape. Starting in the middle of the pie, and radiating out in concentric circles, pull peaks with a small spoon.

Immediately place the pies back into the oven to brown the tips.

Note: You can turn the oven up to 400 degrees to get a more dramatic coloring on the tips.

Here is the recipe in standard pie pans, from last years reunion, with sliced Key Limes as garnish. 

Cool completely on countertop. Then place in a sealed pie container in the fridge overnight to cool.

Note: Moisture is deadly to meringue, as it will cause the sugar suspended in the meringue to turn to syrup and leak out. Since a refrigerator is very humid, you want to try and protect the pie from this as much as possible. They make pie covers specifically made for preserving meringued pies as long as possible. 

This brings me to cutting the pies.

1. Use a wet knife
2. Clean knife and dip in water between each cut.
3. Keep the knife as vertical as possible, as to minimize the contact of the blade and the meringue. 

The 1st piece is always the hardest to get out and therefore the easiest to ruin. This ugly, but tasty treat is your reward for all your hard work. 

The pies will keep about 2-3 days.

The Custards are very easy, the meringue is a little tricky, and making them pretty is the most difficult of all, but all it takes is practice.

Enjoy.