Crème Brûlée: The Essential Guide

Hello everyone, welcome back to the channel, my name is Stéphane and this is the French Cooking Academy. Today we are tackling the famous crème brûlée dessert. Now if you don't know what a crème brûlée is, it's a simple custard-based preparation that you're going to make by hand and then when the mix is ready, you pour that mix into a low-profile ramekin. You then cook the preparation in the oven at a low temperature for about 45 minutes and when the creams are ready, you take them out and let them cool down. Just before serving, and this is the big thing about them, you have to do the famous caramelization process. So usually we use a blowtorch or other method that I will explain later and you're going to burn that sugar and transform it into a lovely crunchy caramel. Ooh, it's absolutely yummy. All the details and instructions on how to make this recipe successfully at home, coming up. Yes, finally the crème brûlée dessert, it's about time we tackle that recipe. Now today for something different, we're going to do the pastry chef version of the crème brûlée that uses milk and cream. Also uses the special low-profile crème brûlée ramekins and I've got a ready one here. And we're also going to be using the dry oven technique, no water involved. So that's the first thing. The second thing I really wanted to tell you because we don't have much time to talk with us, plenty of work. It's about the temperature control. This is the most important thing you need to know when you make crème brûlée. A crème brûlée is based on egg yolks and you should never exceed a hundred degrees Celsius or 210 Fahrenheit when you cook your preparation. This is the key to success. And because we're using a dry oven technique today, you need to know what's going on inside your oven. And what I mean by that is the temperature. So we're going to put a little thermostat inside the oven to make sure we get that perfect 100 degrees Celsius or 210 Fahrenheit. And that's going to ensure for you at home that you're going to get this thing, perfectly cooked crème brûlée. And now let's start the recipe. So as always, all the ingredients will be listed in the video description, but look at this. This is so simple. The crème brûlée only uses full cream milk, a heavy whipping cream, four egg yolks, and a vanilla pod, some white sugar, and some brown sugar just for the caramelization. That's it. Very easy. As we've talked about the ingredients, let me show you some examples of the testings I've done. And to show you in real life what a successful crème brûlée looks like, as you can see in the corner there, and what a failed one looks like. So sorry, I've been digging it because I've been testing the recipe. So basically that, it is a very shallow one, just a test I've done. This is how it should look like when it's a crème, okay? So just to show you here, you can detach it, and the inside, as you can see here, is very creamy. It's just like a crème. Very soft, very tender, and very uniform, and it's got that pale color, right? Okay, so this is the way it kind of should look like when it's successful. Now let's have a look at the failed one. That is a failed crème brûlée, okay? So as you can see already, it's very yellow, because the eggs have cooked. And if you break it, you see all these grains? Let me try to, look at it, look at the difference. This is almost like scrambled eggs, you see? And this is what I mean by the eggs are cooking. So side by side, I don't know if you can see on the camera, you see the difference? That's a nice crème, and look at that. This is totally grainy, totally horrible, still tastes alright, but it's just cooked eggs. Well this one, it keeps that kind of really creaminess, you see? So that's the good one, let me take a spoon of the bad one. And that is the bad one. See the difference? Now making crème brûlée is actually very easy. Before I started, I always thought it was difficult, but now that I know how to make them, very easy. So you're going to start on a low heat, clean pan, and you're going to pour all of your milk into the pan, and same thing with the cream. So equal amount of cream and milk. Next, you're going to pour in your vanilla pod, so make sure you remove the seeds from inside, so I'll start to put the seeds in, and then you put the vanilla pod inside the milk, and bring it to the boil. Now as soon as you see this, that it's boiling, immediately you turn your heat off, and once the heat is off, make sure you mix well, and you're going to leave this to cool down on the side of the stove for a good 10 to 15 minutes. So just leave it in the pan on the side of the stove for 10-15 minutes. So now that the milk is cooling down, we have time to preheat the oven and make sure we get the temperature right. So I wanted to show you my oven is using Celsius, as you can see here, and to get to 100, look at this nightmare. I've got the dot on 90, the next dot, 120 Celsius. So I'm just going to have to trust this, like this, or where is 100? Maybe it's there, maybe it's there, who knows? So this is why I'm using, and I advise to everyone, use one of those inside your oven, so that you know the temperature. Of course, this is Celsius, if you have Fahrenheit, do the same. Here it says 210 degrees Fahrenheit, it's 100 degrees Celsius, so make sure you adjust that to 210, and use a thermometer inside your oven to make sure you nail it down, because that's the key to the perfect crème brûlée, the temperature. Now that's what I want to see, bang on, on 100 degrees. So I'm going to leave it at this, and then we can move on with the recipe that I know my oven is perfectly at the right temperature. Next you're going to do a mix of egg yolks, blended with all of the sugar. As soon as the sugar is in, you're going to gently mix with a wooden spoon, you don't want to use a whisk. So that's one particularity of the crème brûlée, you don't want to really make a big mess with a lot of foam and change the color, you want to keep this as yellow as you can. So you're going to mix it gently like that, until we get a slightly pale color, but slightly. So as you can see here, I've been very gentle, and this is the color I have, it's a little bit pale but still nice and yellow. And now I'm going to check my milk to see if it's cold enough to add it in. Now my milk is ready, and one of the important steps here is to filter your mix a lot. So you start with a little bit of milk, I'm going to catch all the crème and the excess of vanilla, and very gently, you're going to incorporate that with the eggs. And make sure your milk must be just lukewarm, at no point in time you want to be cooking your eggs in your mix. So the first time you put the milk here, you need to make sure that all of the sugar has totally diluted before you add the rest. As soon as the sugar is diluted, and when you mix there's no grains and you can feel under your spoon, you can add the rest of the milk. Again filtered. And same process here, you mix very gently without making any foam, because this is the enemy, you don't want to have much foam at all on top on here, so very very gentle. Once your mix of egg and milk is ready, you're going to pour that in a container that's going to be easy to use, and to pour the liquid into your ramekin. And again you do a filtering. So very gently, to filter any extra bits, and there's a lot of filtering going on. Catch some of the vanilla there, and boom. And that is now ready to be poured into the ramekins. Finally, you're basically done to filling your ramekins, so again, a last filtering and you're just going to fill up whatever ramekin you use, and these are the real low profile ones. I'm just going to fill them up. Second one. All done. This is the end result. Your crème brûlée are now ready to be cooked. So for the cooking, 100 degrees, we've got that in the oven. I'm going to cook these for 45 minutes in the oven. That's the time. Now depending on how much cream you use, you need to make sure you look at them to know when they're cooked. It's usually if it's set and stable around the edges and slightly wobbly at the center, it's ready. My two crème brûlées are out of the oven and still warm, and I just wanted to show you what I mean by the wobbling. You see, look, if I do this, you see how it wobbles in there? Same for that one. You see? So it has to be still a bit wobbly just when it's cooked. So when they are cooked, basically now comes the waiting game. You need to let them cool down for at least 30 to 40 minutes until they reach room temperatures, and when they reach room temperature, you need to put them in your fridge and let them totally cool down for at least two hours. I would say even three hours because they have to be served really, really cold before we can do the caramelization. And now for the caramelization. So crème brûlées, of course, the big thing that they have is they have that crust of caramel on top when they're served. So just before you serve them, you get them out of the fridge. They're like this. There's nothing on top. You're going to sprinkle some sugar over, and you're going to use one of the three methods as follows in order to create your caramel. Method number one, you use a broiler. Put the broiler in your oven at maximum power, and you're going to put this right under the broiler for a few minutes until you get the caramel. Option number two, the blowtorch is what we're going to be using today. You can buy a smaller model in the shops just for crème caramel, and we're going to scorch that into a caramel. The third option, which is quite safe as well, it's basically sprinkling sugar and pouring over a little bit of liqueur, like a brandy or rum, and then you do a flambe and let the flame dissolve the sugar until it becomes a caramel, effectively, and when the flame turns out, then you can serve the crème brûlée. But for now, we're going to try to use the blowtorch and see how we go. Word of warning in terms of using a blowtorch. Always use the instructions very carefully, and use it in a safe environment. Make sure there is no flammable product around you, no piece of paper, no plastic, no clutter, and don't wear any loose clothing and attach your hair or anything like that. Always safety first. Of course, no children around when you're using a blowtorch. You just use a chopping board like this, just the crème brûlée here, so you can work safely. The first step consists, of course, of sprinkling the cream of sugar. You put a good amount. Remember that it is a caramel crust we need to have. Be generous on the sugar, because otherwise you won't get a good crust. When you're done, I've got my blowtorch, and I'm going to start at an angle to gently melt my caramel. Try to go in movement like this, and get even, until you get a nice brownish caramel. Done. Once you've got your caramel, it's just a matter of letting it sit a little bit like that until it cools down, so we can crack it open with the spoon. Et voilà. Everyone, look at this. The crème brûlée is ready, and it looks always lovely with that caramel crust. As you can see, it is hard. What we're going to do, of course, is to make silence and have the crème brûlée moment, which is the cracking open of the caramel. There is a crust, guys. Sorry, I'm going to have to try that. Oh man, it's cold on the inside. Let me turn that. That's how it looks inside, so you have that, you see? You can crunch the caramel, and that thin layer of cream. I'm growing wings. I'm going to heaven, I think. Wow. Well, needless to say, it is good, like all the crème brûlée. Really good dessert. I'm really glad it worked out. Don't forget, this is really the quintessential moment of making the caramel, so you really have that crust. But all in all, that's it, guys. This is how to make a crème brûlée, so always respect the temperature. Remember, 100 degrees. If you want to have that creaminess over here, and then use a blowtorch or other method to get that lovely crust and to have that crème brûlée effect. Well, that's the end of the video, guys. I hope you enjoyed it. I'm off for the day, and I'll see you all next time on the next video. Take care. Bye-bye.