Crème Brûlée, also know as burnt cream, is a cream made by egg yolks, which surface is dusted with sugar, burned afterwards to create a layer of crunchy caramel on top of the cream. (Anybody drooling already?)
The earliest known reference comes from France, although, some say that its origins are english (Crème anglaise), and others think that is just the adaptation of the Spanish Crema Catalana.
In any case, regardless of its origins, I hope you are already thinking about trying to make it at home. I think it´s a nice dessert for a fancy dinner; elegant, simple and sooo delicious.
Here I tell you the way I made it:
Ingredients (4-6 persons)
For the base dough: (I made a base and filled it with the cream, but if you want to save time, you can do it as well without and just pour the cream in the molds)
150 g flour
25 g of cane sugar
125 g of butter
1 teaspoon of water
For the filling:
4 egg yolks
50 g of cane sugar
400 ml of cream
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
Brown sugar for dusting on top
To make the base, start mixing the flour and sugar, then add the butter and knead with your hands, add the water and continue kneading until you get an elastic dough. Make a ball, wrap the dough in film paper and put it in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Strech the dough on the working table and cut into round shape to place it into the molds, make little holes with a fork, place a baking paper on top of the mold and fill it with dry chickpeas or small balls, so the dough does not rise; keep it in the oven at 190ºC for about 15 minutes.10 minutes more without the dry chickpeas if you want it more crispy.
For the filling: start whisking the egg yolks and the sugar until they get a white color. Heat the cream and vanilla in a pan and leave it until just before the boiling point.
Add the cream to the egg yolks and sugar mixture and bring to the fire. Keep stirring until it gets thicker, remove from fire just before boiling point, otherwise you will get lumps in your cream.
Let the cream cool down before filling the molds, then sprinkle brown sugar on top of the cream and burn it with a blowtorch or just leave it in the oven for a couple of minutes on the grill position.
Et voilâ! Let the cream sit overnight in the fridge (please, do something else immediately or your Crème Brûlée wont make it to the next day 🙂
Enjoy!