Making Creme Brulee

with Ben Kurtzman

Transcript: Making Creme Brulee

Hi, I am Ben Kurtzman for About.com Food, and today we are going to make creme brulee. Creme brulee is a delicious dish to order in any restaurant, but it is also surprisingly simple to make at home.

In order to create the burnt sugar glaze for the top of the crème brulee we are going to need a special piece of equipment: this small hand held blowtorch. It is a lot of fun to use and can be purchased at any kitchen store.

Creme Brulee Ingredients

The recipe we are making today will yield four servings. We are going to be using:

• 1 1/3 cups cream
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup of sugar
• 1/2 a teaspoon of vanilla

Prepare the Cream

The first thing that we are going to do is bring our cream to a near boil. You never want to bring any dairy product to a full boil, but with this cream in this recipe we are going to bring it right to the brink. Bring it up to medium heat, and we are going to keep a close eye on it so it does not boil over.

Mix Creme Brulee Ingredients

While we are waiting for the cream to heat up we are going to mix the eggs, the sugar and the vanilla in a small bowl. Whisk the ingredients together until they are nicely blended. Now that the cream is hot enough we are going to add it to the mixture in the bowl, but we are going to be careful and do it very slowly.

Now that our mixture is this beautiful golden color we are going to pour it into another bowl, but we are going to strain it to make sure that we have perfectly smooth crème brulee.

Move to Custard Cups

Now we have a perfectly smooth mixture that we are going to pour into our custard cups and bake. The custard needs to cook very gently, so we use custard cups on this baking rack so the mixture does not touch the hot bottom or sides.

To help the custard cook gently we are going to fill the baking pan with a warm water bath. You want it to be as hot as you can get it out of the tap, and we are going to add it until it comes about half way up our custard cups.

Bake and Refrigerate the Creme Brulee

Turn up the oven to 250 degrees. After an hour check to see if the custard has solidified. Once it has, take it out of the oven and let it cool until the custard cups are cool to the touch. Now that our custard cups are out of the oven we are going to cover them completely in saran wrap and we are going to put it in the refrigerator until it has cooled all the way through.

Heat the Creme Brulee Candy Topping

Now here comes the fun part. The custard has cooled off completely and we get to use the blowtorch. First, I am going to spoon a small layer of sugar over the custard cups. We are going to use the blowtorch to heat up and caramelize the sugar and create the hard, sweet topping that is associated with creme brulee.

It should brown up really quickly. You want to keep it moving so you do not burn the sugar. If you hold it in one place for too long it is going to blacken up on you. And you may get a little bit of smoke, but that is nothing to worry about.

As you can see, once you have applied the blowtorch to the sugar you get a nice, hard candy shell, and that is what makes it delicious when it mixes with the custard.

Thanks for watching, and to learn more, visit us on the Web at food.about.com.

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