Baking A Sweet Life

There’s always desserts that linger in the back of our minds as “ones I’d like to make someday” but am too chicken to do it. Why? I don’t know. Just am was. Not anymore! Tuesdays with Dorie member Mari of Mevrouw Cupcake has selected this weeks bake off and creme brulee was it! Off to the races I was.. I couldn’t wait to make it.  I had a girls-night-in with my sweet friends Karen Rose and Stephanie, and thought this would be an appropriate dessert.

So since this was one of the recipes that I had just kind of avoided for some time, I had just intuitively thought that the ingredients list and/or technique would be cumbersome.  Neither was the case, and within about 15 – 20 minutes these little gems were baking away in the oven.  Here’s the only place that I had some difference with the recipe.  I baked it at the correct temperature, but I had to bake it for over 20 minutes longer to get that “uniformly giggly” quality that Dorie describes in her book.  I compared the baking temperature of this recipe to that of others, and this was definitely on the lower side, at 200F.  Other recipes called for 250-275F.

I had baked these a day in advance with the expectation that I could just slip into the kitchen and torch the tops while Karen Rose and Stephanie consumed more wine.  This was so that I could be the gracious host and if they had enough to drink then it may cover up the taste had these not turned out well.  When I finally figured out how to use the dainty blow torch I carmelized the tops of all of them, waited for the ramikens to cool and then brought them out to my guests.  Since every ounce was eaten, I’ll assume that they were, in fact, pleasing to the palate. I have to admit that I really the creme brulee myself.  I wouldn’t say that I’m a connoisseur of creme brulee, but I really enjoy it.  This didn’t seem as thick or as pale as I was expecting, but I was overly pleased with my first attempt.  I plan on trying a few different recipes out to see if what I was expecting was just a myth.