French crème brûlée or Spanish crema catalana, the dispute about who was the first will never end but one thing is for sure : it’s deliciously decadent. This recipe is called crème brûlée because of the way it is cooked : au bain marie. Another difference with crema catalana is that we will use full heavy cream instead of a mixture of milk and cream. The use of good ingredients will guarantee you a creamy custard which will be hard to fail. Adding three essential ingredients will give the custard that little extra more. And to be original, raspberries are added at the end.
I once made this recipe for my former Catalanian roommate, and being far away from our homes, it really made her think of her dad’s crema catalana, she was so touched, it made her almost cry… Recipe succeeded I would say !
What you need for 6 servings :
8 egg yolks
6 deciliter heavy cream
80 gram granulated sugar
1 organic lemon
1 cinnamon stick or cinnamon powder
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
granulated sugar for the topping
raspberries
Directions :
1) Preheat your oven to 100°C.
2) Beat the egg yolks and sugar in a large bowl until it gets thick and creamy.
3) Heat the heavy cream while adding the cinnamon, lemon zest and the vanilla seeds you removed from the bean. (The bean you can add as well) Be sure to remove the pan from the heat before the cream mixture starts to boil.
Tip: Depending on the size of the lemon and your personal taste, a whole lemon or just a part of it can be used.
4) Remove the vanilla bean and cinnamon stick, pour the cream into the egg-sugar mixture and stir well.
5) Pour the liquid into the ramekins and place them in a with hot water filled roasting trail. This method is called au bain marie (oh-ban-mah-ree)
6) Bake them for 1 hour and 15 minutes (or until it’s not liquidly anymore) at 100°C.
7) Around 40 minutes before they are done, add the raspberries and push them carefully into the still liquidly custard, try to cover them as much as you can.
8) When they are done, let the ramekins cool down and put them in the refrigerator for at least two hours, overnight is fine too.
9) Before you want to serve them : preheat your broiler or oven on grill function.
10) Top the créme brulées with a layer of granulated sugar. Be sure to wipe off any sugar on the inside edges of the ramekins, you don’t want to have burned sugar .
Put them under the grill for about 1 or 2 minutes (depending on your kind of oven) until the sugar is starting to bubble.
11) Serve immediately and enjoy !