Once You Crack Into This Crème Brûlée, You'll Never Go Back

Delish

Thanks to its elegant French name and famous sugar crust, crème brûlée can sound a little intimidating. But it's actually pretty simple to re-create at home.

Transcript

00:00 Hey, it's Frankie from the Delish Kitchen studios.

00:03 I'm going to show you how to make creme brulee.

00:06 It's creamy, it's sophisticated,

00:08 it has that crackly sugar top.

00:10 It's a classy recipe that you will turn to every weekend.

00:14 Let's get into it.

00:16 There are only four ingredients in this classic creme brulee.

00:19 Heavy cream, vanilla bean, granulated sugar, and egg yolks.

00:23 Typically, people use heavy cream and milk

00:26 in their creme brulee,

00:27 but I got to study under German pastry chef Dieter Schörner,

00:31 who popularized the creme brulee in the '80s,

00:35 and he only used heavy cream in his,

00:37 which is why I'm using it in mine.

00:39 It's the most indulgent creme brulee you will ever have.

00:43 Since there's only four ingredients in this creme brulee,

00:45 if you want to go the extra mile,

00:47 instead of using vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract,

00:51 buy a fresh vanilla bean.

00:53 I love vanilla bean pods because they're beautiful

00:55 and they have this robust, fragrant flavor

00:58 that you're just not gonna get from anything

00:59 but the vanilla bean.

01:01 You're going to take your paring knife.

01:02 You're going to slowly slice it down the center

01:05 without breaking through the bean,

01:07 and then you're going to take the back of the paring knife

01:10 and slowly guide it across to remove all of the seeds.

01:14 In your saucepan over medium heat,

01:16 you're going to add your heavy cream,

01:18 your vanilla bean and the pod, salt, and sugar.

01:22 You'll mix that together

01:24 and bring it up to a low simmer.

01:26 After about three to five minutes,

01:27 it should come up to a simmer, which it's doing right now.

01:31 I'm gonna take it off the heat

01:33 and I'm going to let it rest for about three to five minutes

01:36 so that the flavors can kind of meld together.

01:39 We're gonna take out the vanilla bean pod

01:41 and then add it into the egg yolks to temper.

01:43 Tempering in this situation is taking the hot liquid,

01:47 the cream that we steeped,

01:48 and pouring it into the cold egg yolks.

01:51 I'm gonna mix those two things together

01:53 so that it creates this cohesive, creamy,

01:55 creme anglaise-like sauce before it goes into the oven.

01:58 You wanna do this really slowly and really gently

02:01 so that you don't scramble the eggs

02:03 and you don't scorch them.

02:05 Depending on how happy your eggs are,

02:07 you might get egg yolks

02:09 that are super vibrant yellow-orange.

02:12 Makes me think of Italy,

02:13 makes me think of those European farms.

02:17 So that's why our mixture looks like mustard,

02:19 like this mustard color,

02:20 which is actually such a beautiful thing.

02:23 You'll notice my ramekins are in a baking dish.

02:26 I'm going to divide the creme brulee mixture

02:28 into each of the ramekins.

02:29 They're four-ounce ramekins.

02:31 And then I'm going to take hot, tap water

02:33 and pour it into the base of the dish

02:37 until it reaches about halfway up the ramekin.

02:39 This will allow a slow, even cook in the oven

02:43 so the custard is nice and creamy.

02:45 It's really important.

02:46 You don't wanna cook this creme brulee too fast,

02:48 so use warm water instead of boiling water.

02:52 We're baking our creme brulee at 325

02:54 until it's just a little jiggly in the center.

02:56 This should be about 40 minutes.

02:58 We're about halfway through.

03:00 Creme brulee are in the oven.

03:01 They have a slight jiggle to them that you can see.

03:06 Just a little jiggle.

03:10 It's not done yet.

03:12 When it's done, or close to when it's done,

03:14 we'll stick a thermometer in.

03:16 And we want it to register at least 170 to 175.

03:19 We want it to taste like vanilla.

03:21 We don't want it to taste like eggs.

03:23 It's been 20 minutes, longer.

03:26 We're gonna pull this out.

03:27 And I'm gonna stick this guy in there.

03:30 It should read between 170, 175.

03:34 I'm gonna take it out carefully.

03:38 Now that I've taken these out of the oven,

03:41 I'm gonna carefully remove them

03:42 from the hot water bath using tongs,

03:45 put them onto a tray.

03:46 I'm going to let them cool at room temperature

03:48 for about 30 minutes,

03:49 and then continue to let them cool

03:51 and set up in the fridge for at least two hours.

03:54 These just came out of the fridge.

03:56 They cooled for a couple of hours.

03:57 If you wanna serve them warm,

03:59 you can pop them in the oven for a couple minutes at 350.

04:01 If not, serve it cold.

04:03 I'm gonna have it cold.

04:05 I'm gonna sprinkle a little bit of sugar on top of each.

04:08 And then we're torching.

04:10 In the Delish Test Kitchen, we use the propane.

04:13 At home, this is a butane torch.

04:15 That's what you use.

04:17 I'd say there's no such thing as too much sugar,

04:19 but I sprinkle about 1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar

04:22 onto each one of the creme brulees,

04:24 and then I torch the top.

04:26 And why you want more sugar than less

04:28 is so that you get a thick crust.

04:31 It's all about that crack.

04:33 When I'm using a bigger torch or a smaller torch,

04:35 I start from afar,

04:37 'cause I wanna kinda see where my flame is at,

04:39 how hot it is.

04:40 I'll go closer as I start to see

04:42 the golden brown beads form.

04:45 And what I'll do, too, is I'll go into circular motion.

04:48 (torch hissing)

04:49 Like this.

04:50 And then, as I get to the end,

04:52 when it starts to get too golden brown,

04:55 I'll hit it.

04:55 (torch hissing)

04:56 I'll do little dabs in certain places

04:59 that it hasn't caramelized yet,

05:01 because it's hard.

05:02 It's hard to cover the entire surface

05:03 when you have such a small flame,

05:05 so you have to be a little strategic with it.

05:07 This is molten lava sugar.

05:10 Do not touch it.

05:11 Let the bubble settle.

05:13 And when it forms a glass top,

05:15 you'll almost be able to see a little reflection.

05:18 Besides the torching,

05:20 this is the most satisfying part of eating creme brulee.

05:23 Cracking it.

05:25 (torch clacking)

05:27 Look at those pretty glass shards.

05:30 It's like eating sugar candy on top.

05:33 That custard is smooth.

05:35 It's creamy.

05:36 It's golden yellow.

05:38 I love seeing all those little vanilla beans.

05:40 It makes it a little more classy and sophisticated.

05:44 I gotta get into this.

05:45 Whoa.

05:46 That's really fricking good.

05:48 Creme brulee means burnt cream,

05:50 but what it really alludes to is the burnt sugar,

05:53 which is what I'm tasting in my mouth,

05:55 but with that subtle, creamy, vanilla texture

05:58 and flavor underneath,

06:00 it is such the perfect balance.

06:02 So good.

06:03 Cracking into that sugar layer is so satisfying,

06:07 and when I developed this recipe,

06:08 that's exactly the feeling I had,

06:11 and I wanted to give it to you.

06:12 Creme brulee sounds and looks fancy,

06:15 but it is actually foolproof.

06:17 There was four ingredients in this thing,

06:19 and you get your own little individual serving.

06:22 Nobody wants to share anyway.

06:23 And for more classic recipes just like this,

06:26 stick around at delish.com.

06:28 (upbeat music)

06:31 (upbeat music)

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