Nationwide best seller

French women don't get fat. The secret of eating for pleasure by Mireille Guiliano.

My copy was given by my sister S a few years ago, sitting pretty all this while on the bookshelf unread. Curiously, as I flipped the pages I noted that croissant and mousse au chocolat are on the recipe index. I am thinking that I should probably start reading it and learn the mastery because I'm not French = I get fat. Oh yes I do.

Alas! Crème brûlée I love! And I make it relatively frequent now that I have a mini blowtorch. In my humble opinion, it shouldn't be that bad for you. From time to time I have it in the morning in place of a pot of yoghurt actually...



Crème brûlée
(A few different CB recipes I have tried. Many a time I have made them that I came up with my own version)
Makes 4 servings

4 egg yolks
200 ml milk
200 ml cream
1 vanilla pod
60 gr sugar
extra sugar for top

As a rule I use 1 egg yolk and 15 gr of sugar for 100 ml of liquid (50:50 milk/cream). So depending on how many servings I want to make, I use the same ratio.

Use the freshest eggs you can find, and organic I believe is best. Once, I splurged on organic milk and cream. Super duper!

Scrape the inside of lovely vanilla pod into a saucepan, throw the pod in as well for good measure. Add to it, milk and cream.

Heat slowly and before it gets to boil, remove from heat. Leave to infuse for half an hour or so.

Heat oven to 120-130 degrees. Place in it a baking pan half filled with water for the bain marie.

In a big bowl, mix the egg yolks and sugar with a whisk until sugar dissolves. The mixture should feel quite creamy and light.

Add milk mixture to the egg yolk whilst whisking lest they curdle. (Chances are they won't because the milk should have cooled)

Sieve this mixture a few times before pouring into the ramekins (125ml ramekins are perfect). I recommend removing froth that appear on top.

I also recommend adding things such as raspberries or rhubarb compote for variation.

Place them in bain marie and bake for 40 minutes approximately or until they set but the tops should still be quite wobbly.

Leave to cool and store in refrigerator overnight or at least a few hours before serving.

If you have blowtorch, great! Easy peasy... sugar the top, cover everything so they caramelise evenly and fire away. I normally would return them to the fridge for 15-20 minutes before serving, though most sources say serve immediately.

If you don't own a blowtorch I'm afraid I am in no position to give you advice on how to use your oven griller to caramelise the top. (I'm sorry but I had rather disastrous result last time I tried) Please do your own google research.

Note : I figured out how I can insert accents. Yay!