Crème Brûlée

After a disaster earlier this month, I was determined not to mess up crème brûlées a second time.   And so, I turned to Delia.  Now, I know that many people trust her implicitly and her word is the word as far as home cooking in the UK goes, but, ever since she did that tv series where she used canned mince, I have felt unable to admire her in the way others do.  But, principles out of the window, I was desperate.  My in-laws were coming for Sunday lunch and  I wanted to wow them with my crème brûlées.   Or rather,  I really wanted to use my new blowtorch again, which they had given me for Christmas, and crème brûlées would give me an opportunity to use it – and to show off a little!   Look! I can cook sweet things too!   Is this a normal daughter-in-law reaction?

Well, normal or not, I was very pleased when these turned out well.   Definitely a dessert to make to  impress someone with.   Just tapping the spoon against the hard caramel on top of the custard is exciting.   Then, when it breaks, the contrast between brittle shards of caramel and soft creamy custard is just heavenly.

I would like to send this to Lucy at The Kitchen Maid as my first submission for Sweet Sweet Fridays and also to Lisa at Sweet as Sugar Cookies for Sweets for a Saturday.

Ingredients – serves 3

3 egg yolks

1 1/2 tbsp sugar + extra to sprinkle on top

2 tsp cornflour

300ml double cream

1 tsp vanilla essence

How to make Crème Brûlées

1. Heat the cream and vanilla essence in a small saucepan till it gets to boiling point then take it off the heat.

2. In a small bowl mix the egg yolks, sugar and cornflour.

3. Add a tbsp of the cream and mix into the egg yolk mixture.   Add a little cream at  a time and mix well.   When the mixture is quite runny, return all the egg yolk mixture to the saucepan with the cream.    Heat gently stirring.    It will thicken in about 2 minutes.

4. Put the mixture into ramekins. Leave to cool then refrigerate overnight.

5. When ready to serve, sprinkle caster over the top of each dessert.   Put underneath a hot grill for the sugar to melt or use a kitchen blowtorch to melt the sugar.