Birthday Crème Brûlée

Some people want carrot cake. Some people want banana cream pie. My mom asked for crème brûlée.

Anthony Bourdain's Crème Brûlée

from his Les Halles Cookbook*

Ingredients

1 quart/900 ml heavy cream

1 vanilla bean

6 ounces/168 g sugar

10 egg yolks

6 tb/84 g brown sugar

This makes six 8oz ramekins. I halved the recipe to make five 5oz crème brûlées, still using one whole vanilla bean.

Method

Put the heavy cream in large pot. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise- scrape the insides into the cream. Put in empty pod as well. Add half of the sugar to the cream, stir well. Bring to boil.

Preheat your over to 300 °F/150 °C.

Whisk egg yokes and remaining sugar, until pale yellow and slightly foamy. Remove cream mixture from the heat and SLOWLY, gradually, whisk it into the yolk mixture. Make sure to whisk constantly to prevent the hot mixture from curdling your eggs. Remove the vanilla bean and discard.

Place ramekins in the baking pan and fill the pan with water so it comes halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Divide the custard evenly among the ramekins and cook them in the oven for 45 minutes or until the top is set but still jiggly. Remove ramekins from the oven and let cool to room temp. The custards can be placed in the refrigerator overnight- cover in plastic.

When you are ready to serve, sprinkle 1 tablespoon of brown sugar over the top of each custard. Carefully run the propane torch's flame over each custard to caramelize the sugar. Wait a minute then serve the custards with spoons.

Happy 73rd birthday, Mom!

Yeah, we didn't bother to put candles. 

Enjoy!

 




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