Today I learned the secrets of making one of my favorite desserts. A glassy bronze crackle of caramelized sugar with luscious, cool vanilla custard buried underneath– creme brulee, of course!
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| Sifting the sugar. Not too much! Then let the torching begin. |
One of the great pleasures of baking school so far has been learning the science behind everything I make. Actually, "science" makes baking sound more intimidating than it really is. Learning the way ingredients react with each other and understanding how to control them is slowly demystifying baking for me.
Creme brulee is really just a dolled-up custard. A cooked mixture of eggs and cream. Making the custard takes some precision, but it's not hard. After mixing sugar into heavy cream, adding the seeds of a vanilla bean and bringing the mixture to a simmer, you very slowly whisk the sweetened cream into a bowl of whisked egg yolks. If you pour too quickly, or if you don't whisk exactly where you're pouring, you risk cooking the eggs. This gradual mixing of a hot liquid into the raw eggs is called tempering.
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| I may look serious, but I really felt like a kid with a coloring book. |
What you're after is a very soft and gentle custard. To achieve this, you must bake the custards in shallow ramekins. I learned that it's important to skim off any foam that develops near the top, or the custard will not bake properly. An easy way to get rid of foam fast (and way more fun than using a ladle) is to quickly run your kitchen blowtorch over the tops. The bubbles dissipate in seconds.
The final very important step is to bake the custards in a water bath. After placing the ramekins on a baking sheet, you place the sheet in the oven and bring over a pitcher of warm water. You must pour the water into the pan until it comes 1/4 of the way up the sides of the ramekin. Water boils at 212º F. After that, it evaporates into steam. The water bath ensures the custards never come above that temperature. The water also keeps the heat even around the ramekins, so that the outside cooks at the same rate as the inside.
Now back to the fun part–the kitchen torch. Our chef told us that most restaurants use a propane torch (found in any hardware store), rather than a kitchen torch (found in any chi-chi cookware store), because it's a lot more powerful. Pretty bad-ass. Another trick is to dry out the sugar you're going to use to top the custard. If you have an oven with a pilot light, you can spread the sugar out on a baking pan and leave it in the oven overnight. The next day it will be drier and easier to torch.
Torching really is the best part. Almost better than tapping a spoon on top and making the first crack through the caramelized sugar. But before you go crazy with the propane, you have to make sure that the custard is set and cold. When baking, you know the custard is set when it jiggles as one. Think of a female jogger who's neglected to wear a sports bra. That all-over-the-place jiggle is not what you want your custard to look like. It's done when it's just to the point when it's stopped moving all over the place. If the custard has bubbles or cracks, then you've overcooked it. Once it's out of the oven it must cool completely, before you get out the flame. The best way to cool the custard down is to stick the ramekins in the freezer until it's cool to the touch.
My partner and I made seven creme brulees. I ate nearly two of them all by myself, delighting in each crack of the spoon through the sugar. The custard was delicate. It was soft. It was heaven.
