Crème Brûlée
Crème brûlée is a timeless classic that never goes out of style, and when done right, it’s absolute dessert perfection. At its core, it consists of just four ingredients—cream, egg yolks, sugar, and vanilla bean—but its magic lies in the contrast: silky, rich custard beneath a crisp, caramelized sugar top. That satisfying moment when your spoon cracks through the brittle surface is pure dessert heaven.
The keys to a perfect crème brûlée are slow baking in a water bath to ensure an ultra-smooth custard and removing it from the oven when there is just a slight jiggle in the center. Additionally, the custards must be well-chilled, preferably overnight, to prevent the sugar from sinking into the custard before caramelizing.
While your broiler will do a fine job for the last step, using a torch to caramelize the sugar right before serving makes it feel like a bit of a performance—great for impressing guests.
This recipe comes from Classic Home Desserts by the late Richard Sax, the same book that introduced the famous Chocolate Cloud Cake. In the book, Sax notes that he received the recipe from Dieter Schorner, the former pastry chef at New York’s Le Cirque— “the epicenter from which crème brûlée hysteria swept the nation.”
Crème Brûlée
| Yield: 4 individual soufflés | # of Servings: 4 | Difficulty: Moderate |
Ingredients:
Custard:
2 cups (16 fl oz) heavy cream
1 tbl granulated sugar
1 vanilla bean, spilt and scraped
4 egg yolks
1 pinch salt
3 tbl granulated sugar
Topping:
Granulated sugar, as needed
Special tools and equipment needed:
- 4 individual, 6 oz, crème brûlée dishes1 or ramekins
- Baking or roasting pan, large enough to hold all soufflé dishes with 1-inch on all sides2.
- Fine-mesh strainer
- Kitchen butane torch or broiler
Pre-recipe preparations:
- Fill water kettle and heat water just to the boil
- Place the four crème brûlée dishes in the roasting pan. Set aside.
- Preheat oven to 300°F
Directions:
- In small, heavy-bottomed saucepan, place cream, sugar, and vanilla bean with its seeds. Mix well and bring to a simmer. Set aside for 10 minutes.
- After 10 minutes3, whisk egg yolks, salt, and sugar until just combined.
- Remove vanilla bean from cream and bring back to the simmer.
- Slowly whisk all the cream into the egg yolks. Strain through a fine mesh strainer into a measuring cup with a spout.
- Place the crème brûlée dishes or ramekins into the roasting pan and fill each with equal amounts of the custard,
- Place the roasting pan in the oven and fill with enough hot water to reach ⅔ of the way up each dish.
- Bake until the custards are just set, with a slight wiggle in the center, 25 to 30 minutes. The internal temperature should be 285°F.
- Carefully lift the roasting pan from the oven and left each dish out of the water with spatula.
- Let cool for about one hour and then refrigerate for at least six hours, preferably overnight.
Finishing:
- Just before serving, sprinkle a thin layer of granulated sugar over the cold custard. Using a blow torch or a broiler, caramelize the sugar to a deep golden brown.
- Place on a dessert plate with a doily.
Baking notes:
1 I use 6 oz oval crème brûlée dishes1 from Sur la Table
2 I use a 13” by 9” by 2 ¼” roasting pan for this. Any similar sized pan will do. The objective is a rectangle just big enough to hold the soufflé dish with an inch or so of clearance on all sides.3 If the sugar is added too soon, it will make the egg yolks granular.
