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Creme Caramel

Remember me waxing lyrical about how much I love custard? In the days before I could make anything, my custard of choice came out of a little plastic cup with an aluminium cover and tiny little tabs on the bottom.

It was delicious. Sometimes I wouldn't even bother turning it out onto a plate. I'd just spoon it straight out of the cup. Yum. 

This time, I made my very own. From scratch. In my own oven. With eggs and everything. Aren't you proud?

My only issue is a bit of a silly one. The roasting tin I used to bake these in is kind of big for my oven. I can't just put it on an oven rack. It needs to sit directly in the grooves that the rack itself would rest on. Usually this isn't a problem, but when baking custards in a water bath, it all gets very heavy, so it took me about 10 minutes to get it in there comfortable. During this time my oven lost a lot of heat, so of course, I turned it up. Now, what you may not know about my oven is that it's kind of small and only has a heating element at the top. So, these turned on full blast and basically overcooked the tops (or is it bottoms) of my creme caramels. I had to do what I do for macarons and put in a foil covered oven rack just under the heating element. Dumb oven.

The solution? I just scraped those bits off before turning them out. And they were delicious. =)

Creme Caramel

1 cup caster sugar

1/4 cup water

Quick squeeze of lemon (optional)

2 cups whole milk

1 cup cream (at least 35% milk fat)

2/3 cup caster sugar

Pinch of salt

4 large eggs

2 large egg yolks

2 tsp vanilla extract

Add the caster sugar, water and lemon (if using) to a small-ish saucepan. Heat on medium, giving is a swirl every now and then to make sure all the sugar is dissolving. Try to resist the urge to stir. Instead, brush down the sides of the pan occasionally with water and a pastry brush. Cook it until is looks like caramel. It may take a little time, but watch it closely, because once it starts to take on colour it will brown quite quickly. The darker your caramel is, the more pronounced that burnt sugar taste will be in the end result. Once you're happy with how your caramel is looking, take it off the heat and immediately pour into your ramekins or dariole moulds, dividing equally. Swirl your moulds around a little bit to coat the bottom and gently encourage the caramel to crawl up the sides a little. 

At this stage, boil a big kettle of water.

Add the milk, cream, sugar and salt together in a pot and bring to a boil. As soon as it reaches boiling temp, take it off the heat. If you want to add any other flavourings (coffee, citrus, chocolate...) add it to the milk mixture.

Meanwhile, whisk together the eggs, egg yolks and vanilla. When the milk mixture is ready (i.e. scalded) pour into the eggs, whisking constantly. Strain into a jug and pour into the ramekins, over the caramel (which should have set by now). 

Arrange a tea towel in the bottom a baking/roasting dish so that is sits more or less flat. Place your filled ramekins on top. Pour hot water into it until it comes up 1/2 to 2/3 of the way up the sides of the ramekins. Bake at 160°C for 30-35 minutes. To check if they're done, you can gently slide a knife into one of them. If it comes out mostly clean, but with a few little bits of gently set custard clinging to it, then it's done. You can also just give them a little shake. They should be wobbly in the middle, but shouldn't be too watery. 

When you determine them to be cooked, cool them on a wire rack, then chill overnight*. To serve, loosen the custards with a knife and turn onto a plate.

*I've seen recipes which say that 3 hours of chilling is fine. Which is probably ok, but as well as cooling the custard, chilling also loosens up the caramel, giving you that nice oozy sauce. As far as I can tell, the longer you chill it, the more sauce you will get (instead of it all clinging to the bottom of the mould).

Chocolate Pavlovas and Mascarpone Mousse > Daring Bakers June 2010

The June 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Dawn of Doable and Delicious. Dawn challenged the Daring Bakers’ to make Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse. The challenge recipe is based on a recipe from the book Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard.

I did it! It is up :). 


I know it's late, but it is here. My first Daring Bakers challenge. Chocolate pavlova with mascarpone mousse. It was supposed to have mascarpone cream on top as well, but I thought that it kinda looked like something naughty... I also didn't want to have to buy a whole extra tub of macarpone just for that, especially seeing as I don't actually like pavlova. I know. I live in Australia and I don't like pavlova. The travesty. While we're on the subject, you should know that I also dislike Vegemite...


I blanched when I read "pavlova" in the Daring Bakers forums, and seriously thought about not doing this one. I mean, why make a dessert that no one's going to eat? BUT! I did it anyway. Aren't you proud? I reasoned that the chocolate may cover up the inherent sweetness of a pavlova a little. And I also planned to make the mousse the star of the show, which is how I ended up with these mini pavlova nests with a massive pile of mousse of top.


However, despite the mousse being lovely and dark-chocolatey, the stupid thing was still too sweet. Damn you, pavlova! 

So here is the recipe, taken straight from the Daring Kitchen website. Unadulterated and unchanged. I made 2/3rds of the recipe, so if you also dislike pavlova (in which case you probably wouldn't be making this) feel free to do the same. It works fine.

Recipe 1: Chocolate Meringue (for the chocolate Pavlova):

3 large egg whites
½ cup plus 1 tbsp (110 grams) white granulated sugar
¼ cup (30 grams) confectioner’s (icing) sugar
1/3 cup (30 grams) cocoa powder

Directions:

1. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 200º F (95º C) degrees. Line two baking sheets with silpat or parchment and set aside.
2. Put the egg whites in a bowl and whip until soft peaks form. Increase speed to high and gradually add granulated sugar about 1 tbsp at a time until stiff peaks form. (The whites should be firm but moist.)
3. Sift the confectioner’s sugar and cocoa powder over the egg whites and fold the dry ingredients into the white. (This looks like it will not happen. Fold gently and it will eventually come together.)
4. Fill a pastry bag with the meringue. Pipe the meringue into whatever shapes you desire. Alternatively, you could just free form your shapes and level them a bit with the back of a spoon. (Class made rounds, hearts, diamonds and an attempt at a clover was made!)
5. Bake for 2-3 hours until the meringues become dry and crisp. Cool and store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Recipe 2: Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse (for the top of the Pavlova base):

1 ½ cups (355 mls) heavy cream (cream with a milk fat content of between 36 and 40 percent)
grated zest of 1 average sized lemon
9 ounces (255 grams) 72% chocolate, chopped
1 2/3 cups (390 mls) mascarpone (don't forget we made this a few months ago - get the printable .pdf HERE)
pinch of nutmeg
2 tbsp (30 mls) Grand Marnier (or orange juice)

Directions:

1. Put ½ cup (120 mls) of the heavy cream and the lemon zest in a saucepan over medium high heat. Once warm, add the chocolate and whisk until melted and smooth. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and let sit at room temperature until cool.
2. Place the mascarpone, the remaining cup of cream and nutmeg in a bowl. Whip on low for a minute until the mascarpone is loose. Add the Grand Marnier and whip on medium speed until it holds soft peaks. (DO NOT OVERBEAT AS THE MASCARPONE WILL BREAK.)
3. Mix about ¼ of the mascarpone mixture into the chocolate to lighten. Fold in the remaining mascarpone until well incorporated. Fill a pastry bag with the mousse. Again, you could just free form mousse on top of the pavlova.

Crème Brûlée

Please excuse my absence from the blog. I've been finding it hard to achieve non-macaron inspiration of late. Speaking of which, I made some decidedly un-noob macarons two days ago (one batch coffee, one batch nutella/praline), but they were gobbled up by my mother's friends at her dinner party. By the time I got home there were only two left. Two! So, no photos or post until I recreate them.

However, I made crème brûlée.

Just so you know, I really love custard. I love all things custard and all things filled with custard. I like profiteroles solely because they are filled with pastry cream. I love yogo and milo snacks because they are custard. So it is only natural that I love crème brûlée.

I've only made it once before when Nooboy's sister (the older one) brought home a crème brûlée set, with ramekins and a kitchen blowtorch. They were small and cute and tasted lovely. The only issue I found with the set was the blowtorch. We had to fill it up with gas before using it, which took ages, and we still invariably ran out of gas midway through the job.

So for a long time now, I've been wanting my own blowtorch. One which does not need to be filled. Last week I bought one. All one needs to do is attach it to the top of a butane can and voila! Nooboy laughed at me a little when we first turned it on as the flame was huge (I'm pretty sure I can weld stuff with my blowtorch). But he sure wasn't laughing when he had his mouth full of crème brûlée.

Crème Brûlée

2 cups heavy cream
5 large egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla paste (if you can't find this, you can use a vanilla pod, or just some vanilla extract)
Extra caster sugar

Preheat your oven to 120°C and place your ramekins in a baking dish.


Scrape out the vanilla pod (if you're using one) and add the seeds and the pod itself to the cream. Add sugar and heat the cream until it's steaming, but not boiling. Fish out the pod.

Whisk the egg yolks a little and gradually pour in the cream mixture, whisking all the time. Once all the cream has been added and the mixture is combined, pour through a sieve into your waiting ramekins. Pour boiling water into the baking dish around your ramekins, making sure the water comes at least halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake for 45-50mins until just set. They will still be wobbly. Cool on a wire rack and chill overnight.

When ready to serve, spoon some extra caster sugar onto your custard and roll it around a bit to cover the whole of the top. Blast with blowtorch until sugar is a beautiful glossy brown and caramelized all over. If you don't have a blow torch, you can pop them under a preheated grill, as close to the heating element as you can, until sugar caramelizes.

Note: I used four rather large ramekins for this recipe. If you prefer smaller servings, simply adjust the cooking time to suit. Bon appetit!