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Creme Brulee: More fun than you can shake a propane torch at
We had some family over to dinner on Sunday, and wanted to make it a little bit worth their while (our cousin is a fantastic chef), so we planned to do something a little bit special for dessert. And who doesn’t like creme brulee?
We couldn’t inflict our first effort on our unsuspecting relations (lives are at stake here, people), so we had to do a run or two in advance to make sure we know the details and have examined any loopholes.
Phase One: I mixed everything up, following Alton Brown’s very fine recipe on Foodnetwork.com. Since it has to rest and chill out and set for a couple of hours before you get to set fires, I made a round on Monday to be ready to scorch on Tuesday. Just like a cooking show! Then, on Tuesday, I mixed up a second batch, so we’d have another chance to refine our torch technique in advance of the big event.
Pictures below are from various parts of the process. When it was time to get our torch on, we coated them with sugar, and got burning.
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- Increments. Except the vanilla. Because I forgot to put it in the picture.
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- Pour daintily into pretty little cups.
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- Now take out the set you made yesterday. Because you’re a pro.
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- Kitchen-grade butane torch in action.
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- Spouse takes it to the next level. Propane.
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- Propane brulee on the left, butane on the right. All tasty-fine.
A very fine experiment with a highly satisfactory result. Things we learned:
- Use a pretty thin coating of sugar. In the first round we made too thick a crust – it was an instant toothache
- Let the cream cool properly and completely, or your custard may not have a totally smooth texture because it’ll make the egg yolks a little grainy.
- Rum extract adds a nice flavor (because hey, it takes like rum), but it’s best used sparingly.
I hope it helped make dinner at our place a little more bearable for our long-suffering family members.
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October 2nd, 2009 at 5:03 pm
I feel like a total food nerd knowing this, but: The brown sugar torches better if you sort of oven-dry it first, spread a thin layer on a cookie sheet in a very low-temp oven to take most of the moisture out of it. And then poweder it up between your fingers as you put it on the top of the custard, so it’s real fine-grained and even. And remind me to give you the word’s most depraved chocolate creme brulee recipe, coaxed from the dessert chef at the Outer Banks restaurant where I first tasted it (though his version made 32 portions — what a shame to have to make so much, eh…)