Creme Brulee

As if I didn’t bake enough over the weekend, I ended up making creme brulee on Monday night so my sweetie could have something special for Veteran’s Day. I began making creme brulee a few years ago at Valentine’s Day when The Husband expressed a slight interest in it. There’s just something sexy about creme brulee.

This recipe is delicious and easy. Warm-up the cream, beat some egg yolks and that’s about it. I only tweaked it one teeny bit too! Instead of adding vanilla, I dropped two vanilla beans in with the cream while it heated intensifying the vanilla flavor. Try this decadent creamy custard with an Irish Cream instead of the orange liquor and you’ve taken it to another level.

Creme Brulee
Ina Garten, The Barefoot Contessa

1 extra large egg
4 extra large egg yolks
1/2 c sugar, plus 1 T for each serving
3 c heavy cream
1 t pure vanilla extract
1 T orange liqueur

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle, mix the egg, egg yolks and 1/2 c sugar together on low speed until just combined. Meanwhile, scald the cream in a small saucepan until it’s very hot to the touch but not boiled. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the cream to the eggs. Add the vanilla and orange liqueur and pour into six 8 ounce ramekins until almost full.

Place the ramekins in a baking pan and carefully pour boiling water into the pan to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the custards are set when gently shaken. Remove the custards from the water bath, cool to room temperature and refrigerate until firm.

To serve, spread 1 T of sugar evenly on the top of each ramekin and heat with a kitchen blowtorch until the sugar carmelizes evenly. Allow to sit at room temperature for a minute until the caramelized sugar hardens.

Confession: I took the spoon after this photo and went to take another at a different angle. I threw the spoon in my mouth to scoop out some more custard, flopped back down in the chair and ate the whole thing before remembering to take another photo. It’s that good.