The second catch-up post! The past week, I decided to make crème brûlée, using the recipe from NYT Cooking, as a dessert to bring to a sisters’ fellowship night. The inspiration to make this was because I had an excess amount of heavy whipping cream and I wanted to use the ramekins that I stole from my mom.

Like a lot.

Like I had a gallon worth of heavy whipping cream to burn through, it was ridiculous.

Turns out for making a team meeting dinner for 30 people, you don’t need a gallon of heavy whipping cream for zuppa toscana soup. You only need like 5-6 cups.

Anyway, the recipe for this was relatively straightforward and surprising similar to making pastry cream. From the amount of times I’ve had to make pastry cream in the past, things like simmering milk or tempering eggs no longer make me nervous. I was surprised. For a fancy sounding dessert, it was pretty straightforward to make. I was able to make this dessert before work. God bless flexible work mornings.

This recipe differs from the pastry cream, in which, there is no cornstarch involved and after I tempered the eggs with the hot cream, I did not continue to cook it on the stove. Instead, I transferred them to the ramekins placed in a baking tray to bake instead. I made enough to fill 3 small ramekins (my mom’s ramekins) and a big boi ramekin, which I think is the equivalent of 3 small ramekins. I poured enough boiling water to reach a little over halfway on the baking tray and then baked it at 325F for 30-35 min. I think it helped to google what the consistency of creme brulee was supposed to be like. It was not supposed to be as set as jello or as thick as pastry cream, but could be similar in texture like Greek yogurt. I think this fact saved me from overbaking the dessert.

One thing I wished I did was strain the egg-cream mixture before pouring it into ramekins or at least clear out the bubbles/foamy top before baking. I whisked the eggs and sugar until it was foamy when I did not need to. As a result, when it was baking, I noticed that the top was baking a little quickly. I was afraid I was going to end up with a thin egg omelette on top so, halfway through baking, I opened and scrape off the foamy top from each ramekin, which kinda made the surface of each creme brulee ugly-looking. 😦 After baking it, I put it in the fridge to thicken even more.

Luckily, appearance did not seem to matter to my friends. Most likely because everyone was excited at the idea of “me get to light stuff on fire, me like fire :O”. People were generally pretty down to burn something. At least, crème brûlée (which directly translates to “burnt cream” provided a nice, wholesome way to satisfy that pyromaniac craving. The process of burning sugar into a nice layer of caramelized glass on cream was pretty cool to watch too.

I also learned that there was difference between a propane blowtorch and a butane blowtorch. I used a propane blowtorch, which I learned is typically used for torching meat, like ribs. It’s bigger and much more powerful than a butane blowtorch. In contrast, a butane blowtorch is much more compact and easier to control because the flame is weaker. You are much less likely to accidentally burn the sugar when using a butane blowtorch and get an even coating of heat across the ramekin.

Whatever, still tasted good anyway.

I like the taste of it. It was creamy and not too heavy on the vanilla taste. The caramelized sugar paired well with the custard. Overall, this was a simple recipe to try and with a bit of foresight, can be an easy dessert to make and share with other people.

Bonus: Cream Puffs with Black Sesame and Matcha Diplomat Cream

I forgot to take a picture of this but I made cream puffs with black sesame and matcha diplomat creams. This time, I tried to make bear shaped cream puffs by piping out a body and two ears . Unfortunately, the cream puffs expanded in different ways and didn’t end up looking like bears. Guesses that people offered up for what animal I was aiming for included:

• Snail/slug
• Seal
• Whale
• Cat

So nothing close to an actual bear.

Making the pastry creams was pretty straightforward, with the difference of adding some black sesame paste after making the pastry cream or steeping the milk with matcha instead of vanilla. I’m usually not a fan of black sesame but I was curious. I was actually pleasantly surprised by how the black sesame pastry cream turned out and it tasted even better after elevating it to diplomat cream by folding whipped cream into it. On the other hand, there is some demystifying work that I have to do with the matcha diplomat cream. The matcha flavor wasn’t very strong in the pastry cream so I added some matcha powder to the whipped cream to help boost its flavor when I folded it with the pastry cream. I can’t tell if I accidentally overwhipped the cream but it looked less smooth and a little bit grainy, in comparison to the black sesame version. Regardless, it tasted good and I was able to pipette both types of diplomat creams into the pate choux not-bear bear shells.

Mark my words, I will nail that “bear” down.