Easy Espresso Crème Brûlée
“Crème brûlée is the ultimate ‘guy’ dessert. Make it and he’ll follow you anywhere.”
– Ina Garten.
I’d follow anyone anywhere for this crème brûlée. I can’t get over how wonderful it is with the espresso flavor added. I had some freshly purchased powder for another recipe and thought I’d throw in a couple teaspoons. Oh my goodness. The coffee with the vanilla, the warm sugar and the cold custard, the soft and the hard textures…it is sublime.
Can you make this recipe without the espresso powder? Sure. But trust me, the coffee flavor takes it to a whole new level. I’ve read you can substitute instant coffee for the espresso powder, or simmer coffee beans with the cream. I haven’t tried those methods but if you have, please share. How was it? Are these more convenient and/or cheaper alternatives to espresso powder equally tasty? I’d love to know.
Burnt Cream
That’s what “crème brûlée” means – burnt cream. Not sugar, interestingly enough. The earliest recorded recipe for crème brûlée is from one François Massialot in his 1691 cookbook Cuisinier Royal et Bourgeois, though it’s unlikely France can claim country of origin for the dessert. Spain is one of the main contenders, with its crema catalana, and England would be the other, where examples of a dessert called “burnt cream” date back to the 1400s.
For special occasions the top [of the custard] was covered in sugar and placed under a hot salamander so that it melted and bubbled, then allowed to cool again. This dish called Burnt Cream must have been a yearly favourite in spring and remained so for hundreds of years; in the late nineteenth century several people believed the recipe derived from Cambridge University. Now it appears on menus as Crème Brûlée, with no clue that it stemmed from the poorest medieval farmyard kitchen.
– Colin Spencer, British Food: An Extraordinary Thousand Years of History
The salamander referenced above was a hot, long-handled kitchen iron used to burn the sugar on top. You can still buy handheld salamanders today, and truly authentic crema catalana is still made with one.
As far as the Cambridge University reference, Spencer’s referring to “Trinity Cream” or “Cambridge Burnt Cream,” an unsweetened, thicker crème brûlée associated with the school. To this day, the custards boast the college crest burnt into the sugar on top, a tradition dating back to the late 19th century. But the charming story that a student at Cambridge “invented” the Trinity Cream? Well, Trinity College itself disputes that.
Wherever it started – England, Spain, or France – and however you decide to burn your sugar – salamander, brand, kitchen torch, or oven broiler – crème brûlée remains a timeless, delicious dessert that’s surprisingly easy to make.
The Steps
- Mix together cream, sugar, vanilla, espresso, and salt. Simmer then steep.
- Whisk your egg yolks. (To see what magic is happening here, check out my Excellent Egg post.)
- Temper your eggs.
- Strain and pour the custard into ramekins.
- Prepare the hot bath and bake. (Be vigilant! It’s so dang easy to overbake these. I take mine out three-to-five minutes before I think I should and they usually come out great.)
- Chill the custards, preferably overnight.
- Torch the sugar.
- Serve and be prepared for all the love coming your way.
Crème Brûlée
Ingredients
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 1 vanilla bean (or 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract)
- 2 tsp espresso powder (optional)
- 1/8 tsp fine sea salt
- 5 egg yolks
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup superfine sugar, or processed granulated sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325°.
- Bring water to a simmer on the stove, enough to halfway-fill a roasting pan later. A tea kettle works great for this.
- In a saucepan, combine the heavy cream, half the non-processed sugar (1/4 cup), the espresso powder, and the salt. Split a vanilla bean down the middle lengthwise and scrape seeds out with the tip of a knife. Add both the seeds and the pod to the pan. Heat over medium heat and simmer, stirring until sugar and espresso powder are dissolved, then remove from heat. If using extract instead of a vanilla pod, add it just before removing from heat. Cover and allow to steep for 30 minutes.
- While the vanilla cream is steeping, whisk egg yolks and the remaining 1/4 cup unprocessed sugar in a large bowl. Beat until the yolks are a thick, pale yellow, and form fat ribbons when dropped from the whisk into the bowl.
- Discard vanilla bean pod. Add a couple of tablespoons of the warm espresso vanilla cream mixture to the egg mixture and blend to temper the eggs. Add a few more tablespoons of warm cream and blend again. Once eggs are tempered, transfer the tempered egg mixture to the pan with the warm vanilla espresso cream and stir until well-combined.
- Strain mixture through a fine mesh sieve into 6 ramekins* ensuring each ramekin has an equal amount, and leaving about 1/4″ at the top for the glaze. Place filled ramekins in a roasting pan and gently pour the boiled water into the pan surrounding the ramekins, creating a hot water bath.* Add enough hot water so that it comes about half way up the sides of the ramekins. Bake just until the outsides of the crème brûlée are set but the centers are still wobbly, about 40-50 minutes.*
- Remove from oven and let cool for about an hour before covering loosely and chilling in the refrigerator overnight.*
- To serve, sprinkle tops with the superfine or processed granulated sugar. You want a fairly thin even layer. Using a torch, work on a section at a time and from the outside in to caramelize the tops.* Let sit for a minute or two to harden and serve.*
Notes
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