Crème Brûlée (French vanilla custard)

Here is a classic Crème Brûlée with a silky, smooth and rich custard topped with a thin pane of crunchy toffee. This is French chic personified in a dessert – classy but not stuffy, and oh-so-effortless! It takes just 4 simple ingredients: cream, egg yolks, sugar and vanilla. It’s an excellent make-ahead dessert for an elegant dinner party, yet easy enough to whip up for dinner tonight.

And no, you don’t even need a blow torch to make the toffee topping!

Crème Brûlée

I will never forget the first time I made Crème Brûlée because I was floored by how easy it was. I think I just assumed that something that looks and tastes so incredible, and appears on the menus of great restaurants would be really hard to make!

I think you too will be so surprised how easy Crème Brûlée is! No fancy gadgets needed (I’ll get to the toffee topping later :-)) and just 4 simple steps:

1. Infuse cream with vanilla (10 minute simmer, and stand for 1 hour);

2. Whisk egg yolks and sugar, then cream;

3. Pour into ramekins, bake, then chill;

4. Sprinkle with sugar and finally blast with blowtorch or stick it under a screaming hot grill to form the toffee topping.

“Wait, that’s it??”, I hear you exclaim incredulously. Yep. You barely need a recipe! 😂

(PS. How to pronounce Crème Brûlée: krem broo-lay. Bonus points if you can do the guttural French accent. I can’t – I can only say it with an awful Aussie drawl!)

What goes in Crème Brûlée

Here’s all you need to make Crème Brûlée:

• Cream – Heavy / thickened or pure cream works just fine here. If you opt for low-fat cream, you will miss the rich mouthfeel but the recipe does still work;

• Vanilla bean – While real vanilla beans will give the best and purest vanilla flavour, you can use vanilla bean paste instead. Vanilla bean paste still has the little black vanilla seeds in it, so it will look the same but the vanilla flavour is not quite as pure. Vanilla extract also works, though it’s another step down from the “real thing”, albeit an excellent economical option. I personally wouldn’t recommend making Crème Brûlée using imitation vanilla essence. It kind of defeats the purpose …

• Sugar – Some for mixing into the custard, and a bit for sprinkling on the surface to make the paper-thin, shatteringly crispy topping!

• Egg yolks – This gives Crème Brûlée its velvety mouthfeel as well as making the custard set.

  Leftover egg whites – Here’s my list of what I do with them and all my egg white recipes can be found in this recipe collection.

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How to make Crème Brûlée

A chic French baked custard dessert everybody knows and loves … yet it’s a walk in the park to make!

1. Scrape vanilla bean – To scrape the vanilla bean “caviar” (seeds) out, cut an incision down the length of the vanilla bean. Then use the back of a small knife held perpendicular against the vanilla bean and scrape it along the inside to scrape out the vanilla bean seeds. See demo in the recipe video below;

2. Infuse cream – Place vanilla seeds, empty vanilla bean pod and cream in a saucepan, and simmer over low heat for 10 minutes. Then leave to stand for 1 hour so the cream is infused with the vanilla flavour and cools (so it doesn’t cook the egg when we add it). I tend to do this with the lid off because I don’t like condensation dripping into my cream from the lid if you cover it. (I always think, “It’s diluting the cream!”, which actually makes absolutely no sense 😂.)

   It does mean removing the skin that forms on the surface before mixing into the egg;

3. Make egg mixture – Whisk egg yolks with the sugar;

4. Add cream – Remove the vanilla bean from the cream (and have a giggle when you see what I use to remove it in the recipe video!) Use a slotted spoon or similar to remove any skin from the surface of the cream to ensure our custard is silky smooth;

5. Make custard – Pour the cream into the egg mixture then whisk until just combined. Don’t whisk more than necessary as this creates air bubbles. Though let’s be honest, it’s really not the end of the world if you have an air bubble or two in your custard! I’m just being a perfectionist here :-);

6. Fill ramekins – This recipe makes 500ml / 2 cups of custard, so that’s four servings of 125ml / ½ cup each. Small ramekins holding around 150ml / ⅔ cup are an ideal size – this is what I used.

   Restaurants often serve Crème Brûlée in a flatter, larger dish so there’s more surface area and thus more toffee action. I applaud this clever move – we all love that toffee top, it’s the best part! – but regretfully I do not have such a dish;

7. Water bath – Place ramekins in a deep(-ish) roasting pan, then fill the pan with boiling water so it comes halfway up the side of the ramekins. Don’t go any higher than this otherwise the ramekins will float around in the water!

8. Bake 35 – 40 minutes or until the custard looks and feels set but still wobbles when you (gently!) shake the ramekin.

How to make the crisp toffee topping of Crème Brûlée

A blow torch makes short work of the crisp toffee topping. Just sprinkle with sugar and blast with the blow torch for around 6 to 10 seconds until the sugar melts and turns golden. It will then quickly harden as it cools.

However, if you don’t have a blow torch, just stick the ramekins under a screaming hot grill / broiler for around 45 seconds to 1 minute so the sugar melts. It works just fine, though my two little tips are: (1) the brûlée should be refrigerated overnight to ensure it is really cold to help prevent the custard from melting; and (2) after the sugar is melted, pop the Crème Brûlées back in the fridge for at least 20 minutes, and up to 1 hour. This is because the grill takes longer than a blow torch so the surface of the custard under the caramel will melt a little bit.

That moment when you crack through the caramel topping and are greeted with the sight of silky smooth custard … *faint* . Heaven in a ramekin!

What to serve with Crème Brûlée

As for what to serve Crème Brûlée with? So many options! It makes a very elegant ending to any dinner, but of course the obvious option is to round out a French menu with this impressive dessert. Here are some French menu ideas:

• Steak or salmon with Béarnaise Sauce – a suitably upmarket main dish!

• Hearty stews – Beef Bourguignon, Coq au Vin or down-home French country cooking with a Chicken in White Wine Sauce;

• French Onion Soup – An excellent starter option though certainly suited as a main as well;

• Fish with Lemon Beurre Noisette – Fish with a brown butter and lemon sauce (outrageously good);

• Nicoise Salad – This Provencal tuna salad would make for a great lighter main course for a balmy summer’s day; and

• Side salad suggestions – Try a classic French Bistro Salad, a (better!😉) French Carrot Salad or a Southern French-inspired Tomato Salad with Olive Tapenade. Or make your own with a French Vinaigrette.

Head here for even more French food ideas! → French recipe collection

Bon appétit! – Nagi x

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Watch how to make it

Originally published in September 2016. Updated with brand new photos and long overdue recipe tutorial video! No change to recipe – it’s perfect as is!

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