Everyone seems to think that creme brûlée is something you buy in a fancy restaurant, not make at home. BUT IT’S SO EASY!! No really, it is. As long as you have the best ingredients available, you are good to go! Heavy cream, sugar, egg yolks, vanilla. That’s it. All available at the grocery store. Now, if you can up your game and get yourself a real vanilla bean, it will be even more fantastic.
There was a time when creme brûlée gave me great anxiety. When I was a baby pastry chef, it was my job to make creme brûlée. I had never made it before and there was no one around in the kitchen to train me, and there surely wasn’t a smart phone available for me to whip out a YouTube “how to” video.
The key is to always bake in a water bath that doesn’t cause you harm when you take it out of the oven. There are recipes out there that will tell you to make a water bath out of a sheet pan. You WILL get scalded if you try this. I know this not only from personal experience but from watching my students try this because they read it in their text book. Use a roasting pan, cake pan, hotel pan, or whatever you have that will not cause water to spill everywhere when you take the Brulee out of the oven, because the water will slosh around a bit.
Crème Brulee
Yield about 32 brulees
| Ingredient | X1 |
| Heavy cream | 4 qt |
| Sugar | 224g |
| Vanilla bean | 1 |
| Salt | 1t |
| Egg yolks | 624g |
| Sugar | 456g |
Method:
Bring 1st 4 ingredients to a boil
Whisk yolks and sugar
When cream mixture boils, pour over yolks while whisking constantly
Bake 325-350 deck over 30 mins or until set.
Will take longer if baking mixture from fridge
HOME SIZE VERSION
Crème Brulee
2C heavy cream
2T sugar
¼ of 1 vanilla bean
Pinch of salt
4 egg yolks
¼ C sugar
Sugar for the topping
Combine cream, sugar, vanilla bean and salt in a pot and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally to be sure the sugar does not stick to the bottom of the pan
While cream is heating, whisk the egg yolks and sugar together in a mixing bowl
Pour hot cream mixture of the eggs, about ¼ of it at a time. Whisk well after each addition
Pour mixture into molds*
Bake at 350F in a water bath about 30 minutes or until firm to the touch
Chill, Brulee and eat!
* Mixture can be refrigerated and kept for a few days. It will take 5-10 minutes longer to bake
Makes 4
Pastry Chef Lisa 