Creme Brulee with Strawberries

Creme Brulee

Serves: 6

Ingredients:

1 quart Heavy Cream

1 Vanilla Bean, split and scraped

1 cup Vanilla Sugar, divided (I used regular sugar and it worked great)

6 large Egg Yolks

Hot Water (for water bath)

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Pour the cream, vanilla bean, and the bean's pulp into a medium pan. Cook on medium-high heat until boiling.
3. Remove the pan from the heat, remove the vanilla bean, cover the pan, and let it sit for 15 minutes.
4. In a medium bowl, whisk together 1/2 cup sugar and the egg yolks until the mixture lightens in color.
5. While still stirring, slowly pour the cream into the bowl.
6. Pour the mixture into your ramekins. I used 8, 4 oz ramekins.
7. Place the ramekins in a large pan. Fill the pan with hot water until the water-line is half-way up the side of the ramekins.
8. Place the pan(s) in the heated oven. Bake until the edges are se, with the center still trembling. ~40-45 minutes
9. Remove the ramekins from the pan and refrigerate them for at least 2 hours and up to 3 days.
10. Remove the brulee from the refrigerator about 30 minutes prior to browning. 
11. Spread some sugar on top of the brulee. How much depends on how thick you like your crust. I use about 1 tsp of Brulee Sugar on top. You can use up to a Tbsp.
12. Grab your culinary torch and light it. Hold the flame with enough distance to melt the sugar, but not enough to cause a sudden darkening of the sugar. Move the torch in small circles over the brulee; holding it in one spot for too long can scorch the custard.
13. Wait about 3 minutes and serve!

For Christmas, my husband gave me a culinary torch and some ramekins. He also found Alton Brown's Creme Brulee recipe and bought the ingredients so that I could make it right away. (He knows me well.) Even though I burnt the heck out of my first set, it still tasted phenomenal! I love making this recipe! It is really great if you are having people over for dinner; you make it the day before and let them torch their own dessert, lol. The original recipe is here: Creme Brulee Recipe : Alton Brown : Food Network

Creme Brulee is considered the classic dessert. It is fairly light, can compliment any meal, and is pretty simple to make. It is more time consuming then difficult. And there are endless variations; with fresh fruit, with chocolate, made entirely of chocolate, classically done with special Creme Brulee sugar on top...

I recently bought a cookbook that is just different types of Creme Brulee. It is an interesting read; I had not known that my new Torch could be so useful. Stay tuned for further Torch usage! (My pyro side is coming out!)