Creme-brulee for real

Creme-brulee is one of my favorite desserts. I was always fascinated about burnt sugar on the top of Creme-brulee. I watched the movie No Reservations where Katrine Zeta-Jones fries brown sugar with her torch and makes it pretty-looking with fruit decoration! And I just wanted to try to make it!
So, my long-term goal was to get me Creme-brulee set and on one memorable day of July 3rd Paul bought me a Creme-brulee set from Bath, Body and Beyond Store! It was $20 and with discount coupon we got it for $17!

Set had a small torch and 4 ceramic dishes called ramekins. We also bough a canister of butane for the torch, heavy cream for the recipe and I was ready to cook my first Creme-brulee ever!
The recipe is actually really easy to prepare. The hardest part is to bake it to perfection. But ingredients are simple: for 4 small ramekins you will need 1 cup of heavy whipping cream, 3 eggs yolks, 1/4 cup of sugar and a pinch of vanilla sugar or 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract. The recipe specifically calls for using a good quality vanilla. I used my vanilla extract from Mexico.

Beat egg yolks, 1/4 cup of sugar and vanilla in a mixing bowl until thick and creamy.


Then pour 1 cup of heavy cream into a saucepan and stir over low heat until it almost comes to boil. Remove the cream from heat immediately.

Stir cream into the egg yolk mixture; beat until combined. This process called "tempering" - meaning increasing the temperate of eggs to the temperature of heavy cream. You have to slowly add hot cream into egg yolk mixture and don't let it to be overheated.

For the better quality you need to drain you mixture in case if some parts of egg didn't dissolve. Take a strainer and pour the mixture into a measuring cup.

We are ready to pour our mixture into ramekins. I prefer to do it next to the oven since the next step is transferring the baking dish with hot water into the oven will need a special care.

Pour mixture into ramekins or any other shallow heat-proof dishes.


Pour hot tab water into the baking dish just enough to come 1/2 way up to the ramekins sides.


Carefully place in 325 degrees by Fahrenheit oven for approximately 25-30 minutes until Creme-brulee just set and still slightly trembling in the middle.


Remove from oven and cool to room temperature. Now we come to the fun part. Torch! Paul filled it with butane and showed me how to use it.

I used just regular white granulated sugar. Brown sugar works pretty good too - even faster. And Paul told me that there are different colors of sugar sold just for Creme-brulee lovers somewhere on Internet! I need to explore that topic!

You need to spread the sugar evenly on the top of Creme-brulee and caramelize top with torch by constantly moving it from side to side. It was FUN!!!!

Make sure you don't burn it, because even after you take the torch away sugar keeps burning and it can be overcooked. If you don't have a torch, you can use just a regular oven with broiler. Place dishes with Creme-brulee under broiler until sugar melts, about 2 minutes. Watch carefully so as not to burn. It is ready!

I decorated mine with strawberries and mint leaves. It was the most delicious Creme-brulee I've ever eaten! Join the club of Creme-brulee lover and try one for yourselves. It is good!