Vanilla Bean Creme Brulee

I was made aware of some profoundly disturbing news the other day through a one-liner email from my friend Sharon:
“Did you hear about the world wide vanilla shortage?”
I swallowed hard. I hadn’t heard the news.
As a baker who goes through a significant amount of vanilla (the good vanilla, the Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon vanilla bought by the quart), this was not a happy, smiley-face-emoticon kind of email to read. So what’s a girl with a penchant for the good stuff to do, when it’s on the brink of extinction? You do what they did during the days of prohibition- you go hogwild. You make the most special vanilla recipe you have, and celebrate every last tiny bean before the pasty chefs start bootlegging vanilla into the country (and carrying guns).

So- what special dessert to choose? Crème brûlée is special, and not just because it has three different accents in its title.
No, this dessert tops the favorite list for many (other than raging chocoholics) for many delectable reasons:
* It’s one part creamy, one part crunchy. This stunning juxtaposition of textures makes for some serious cravings.
* It’s fun. Breaking through the caramelized sugar crust with a spoon is unexplainably entertaining. (It helps that the custard waiting for you underneath the crunchy roof oozes a bit through the sugar shards that are left behind.)
* It tastes freaking amazing. That might be the only reason that matters, folks.

With a mere four ingredients, this recipe is a pleasure to make and is relatively hard to screw up. If you’re looking to lighten things up in the fat department, you could always make the Dairy Free version noted in the Tips section… the texture isn’t as rich, of course, but you knew there wouldn’t be a way to substitute heavy cream in all its heavenly glory.
So even though this dessert might cost you a premium to make, it’s worth it in this classic. (Oh, and it’s the dessert we chose to serve at our wedding, many moons ago at this point. Now that’s a special dessert- a vanilla crème brûlée in lieu of a wedding cake.)

This recipe is gluten-free, in case it matters to you…

8 egg yolks

1/3 cup sugar (plus extra for sprinkling over tops of ramekins)

1 vanilla bean, scraped and seeded (or 1 teaspoon real vanilla extract)

2 cups heavy cream
1. Preheat oven to 300° and line two casserole dishes with a paper towel each.
2. In a large bowl, whisk yolks with sugar until smooth and pale (2 minutes). Add beans from a scraped vanilla bean and heavy cream, and whisk until incorporated.
3. Strain mixture with a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl (one with a spout if you happen to have).
4. Pour into four ramekins (or six shallow ones), and place into casserole dishes on top of paper towels (placed to prevent the ramekins from sliding around). Fill the pans with water so it reaches halfway up the sides of the ramekins.
5. Bake for 40 – 50 minutes, until jiggly in the centers. Remove from oven and place ramekins on cooling rack. Cool completely before caramelizing sugar on top.
6. CRUSTS: sprinkle 1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar over tops of custard and using a crème brûlée torch or the broiler in an oven, caramelize the sugar until browned but not burned. Serve immediately (with or without fruit on the side) and enjoy.
Tips:
- The vanilla bean is the real deal. It’s so much more fun to eat a custard with the little specks of the seeds in it, isn’t it? If you can get your hands on one of the pricey buggers, it’s worth it- just slice it in half lengthwise with a paring knife, and place it cut-side up on your cutting board. Use the edge of the knife blade to scrape out the seeds, holding the knife perpendicular to the bean. The seeds will be clumpy and moist, but don’t fret- they’ll separate as you whisk your yolk-sugar-cream mixture.
  (If you plan on using vanilla extract instead of a bean, just make sure you use real vanilla and not imitation flavoring. For a simple recipe like this, the vanilla needs to be legit or it will taste… imitationey.)
- What’s with the water bath? It helps the custards bake evenly in their ramekins, instead of just from the tops and bottoms through to the inside. Be careful not to splash water into the ramekins when pouring into the casserole dish.
- Thinking big? You can make one monster crème brûlée in a larger dish, but reduce temperature of the oven to 275° and still try to place in a water bath if you have a container larger than the one you are baking the custard in. (You might end up with souffle-like outsides and runny insides- try to keep the amount of custard pretty shallow in the large dish.) Increase baking time to 50 – 60 minutes and check regularly; remove from oven when center is still a bit jiggly (like jello).
- The crust: it’s just so darned important. Dab any excess moisture off the tops of the custard with a paper towel if necessary. Gently tip the ramekin around to distribute the sugar over the entire surface, and pour out any excess sugar (into the next ramekin). If you are using your oven broiler, make sure the ramekins (placed on a baking sheet to make handling easier) are within 5 inches of the broiler flame, and watch them from start to finish. You might want to move the pan around to prevent hot spots from burning the sugar in one particular area… and after you have finished browning the sugar, place the ramekins back in the fridge for at least 10 minutes to re-chill the custard.
- Storage: these wait nicely in the fridge without their crusts… so prepare in advance by a day or two and then do the crusts right before serving. I freeze the individual ramekins (again, sans sugar crust) and just thaw in the fridge, no problemo.
- DAIRY-FREE LOWER-FAT VERSION: replace the 2 cups of heavy cream with almond milk (either regular or unsweetened; try not to use vanilla flavored variety unless you’re really serious about vanilla). Increase baking time by about 10 – 15 minutes. Make sure to dab the excess moisture off the surface before sprinkling the sugar for caramelization.
- Enjoy. This one is a winner and I hope you like it even a fraction as much as I do.
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April 18th, 2012 | More Sweets Please | 2 Comments | Tags: Classics, Dairy-Free, Gluten-Free, Goopy

2 Responses and Counting...

Sharon 04.18.2012

Finally got to see this! I do love your version of this having been lucky enough to have received a smuggled in version of this from the Goddess of Baking herself. I found out the hard way today that when making caramel sauce one will fail to get proper consistency if one substitutes fat free half and half. I was sure it wouldn’t work but I was craving caramel topping for my ice cream and it was all I had in the fridge. Tastes fine though:)
More Sweets Please

Yes, there really is no perfect substitute for cream when making caramel, is there? So, so sad. Yet so, so good.