Recipe Format Specifications for Crème Brûlée

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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:

1. 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.
2. After 10 minutes³, whisk egg yolks, salt, and sugar until just combined. 
3. Remove vanilla bean from cream and bring back to the simmer.
4. Slowly whisk all the cream into the egg yolks. Strain through a fine mesh strainer into a measuring cup with a spout.
5. Place the crème brûlée dishes or ramekins into the roasting pan and fill each with equal amounts of the custard,
6. Place the roasting pan in the oven and fill with enough hot water to reach ⅔ of the way up each dish.
7. 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.
8. Carefully lift the roasting pan from the oven and left each dish out of the water with spatula. 
9. Let cool for about one hour and then refrigerate for at least six hours, preferably overnight.

Finishing:

1. 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. 
2. 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.