Creme Brule Attempt

This blog post is adequately titled with the word attempt because I am going to have to try this again! But first, let me share what I've learned...

This recipe posed several challenges: 1. requires individual servings; 2. I've never attempted it before; 3. how to make it less fat since the recipe requires cream. I'll admit that the last one was self-imposed, but still. I managed to solve the first problem by deciding to use my small coffee mugs (luckily I have 12 of them) as the serving dish instead of ramekins. The second I wasn't too concerned about and I resolved the 3rd by using half and half instead of whole cream. All good I thought....

The cooking process went great. Yeah it's annoying to figure out how you're going to boil enough water in 2 pans not designed for that purpose and fit 12 coffee cups in glass pans filled half way with that boiling water. But, I managed to get through all of this and they smelled great when I pulled them out of the oven.

On the way to the fridge for chilling, I was a little concerned about the liquidy texture, but I figured that's what 12 or more hours in the fridge will fix. I was sadly mistaken. The next morning I found 12 still 80% liquidy creme brules in my fridge. Oops! As you might have guessed, the half and half changed the consistency of the creme brules so they didn't solidify the way that they were supposed to. After much online research while at work and a discussion with my mom, I decided that I'd add additional egg yolks to the liquidy brules to fix this.

Luckily, it worked! I rushed home from work and dumped all of the brules back into a bowl, added egg yolks, put the water and the brules back in the pans, and baked at 325 instead of 300 for 40 mins. Success! Much more solid when I pulled them out. Not as solid as they should have been, but still solid enough to serve to guests.

Tara helped out by bringing the brule torch which J and Candace had a great time using to evenly burn the sugar for the topping. In my tipsiness of the evening, I forgot to take action shots of the brule and couldn't hold off people from eating long enough to take a pic either. Nonetheless, I'll add a pic of a non-bruled brule and do better next time!

Here's a link to the recipe care of William Sonoma.