Creme Brulee Recipe!

I have to apologise for my lack of photo laden blog posts...

While having my phone connected to blogger is awesome, I am yet to figure out how to actually place pictures in the blog post... I'm not even sure you can do this - it just wants to put them at the end of the post.

And the beauty of smartphones, is that now I'm too lazy to be bothered turning on the computer to do a post. haha.

Anyway, my hubby has been begging me for weeks to make him Creme Brulee.  It's not really part of a healthy eating regime, but I was surprised to find it doesn't use too much sugar and therefore is a semi low carb treat.

We didn't do anything spectacular for Valentine's Day... put it this way, I'd just recovered from a cold, Mr A had an ear infection & conjunctivitis, Miss L then contracted the cold with +40 degree temps, hallucinations etc in the night and hubby had a cold.... valentines fell in the midst of this.

Still, I found some loving enough to make him creme brulee.... and here is my variation of the recipe:

Don't be put off by the steps - REAL easy to make.  This will serve 4-6 people easily.  I made half this and it made two very LARGE portions or three perfect sized portions...

Ingredients:

• 600ml cream
• 1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped (or 1-2T Hansell's vanilla extract / OR 1 large tsp Hansell's vanilla paste - both available from New World supermarkets)
• 6 egg yolks (save the whites and make a quiche or omelette ;-)
• 1/4c caster sugar (I actually used half this amount and it was still YUM! but I'm used to not having things too sweet)
• 120g demerara sugar (I used raw sugar and it works just fine)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 120 degrees celcius
2. Place cream and vanilla bean/seeds/extract/paste into pot and bring to scalding point (almost boiling) on medium heat - this does not take long!!
3. Whisk together egg yolks and caster sugar together in a bowl until pale in colour (2-3 minutes)
4. Remove vanilla pod from cream and pour over the egg yolks, whisking until well combined
5. Pour into ramekins (fills 4 x 200ml) or, you can make it in one large dish (I haven't done this)
6. Carefully place into a roasting pan or similar dish.  Fill the dish to halfway up the ramekins with boiling water (to create a water bath)
7. Loosely cover with foil and bake for 35-40 mins until JUST set (looks really wobbly)
8. Remove from water bath and set aside to cool
9. Sprinkle demerara sugar evenly over top of the baked custards (about 1 heaped tsp per custard should do it) and place under max heat grill until sugar bubbles and caramelises (watch them) or be fancy and blow-torch them ;)
10. Serve immediately

YUUUUM this stuff is like, velvety smooth & delicious.  If you chill it in the fridge I suggest covering with gladwrap while you chill it.  Stops the top drying out.

Recipe courtesy of masterchef Australia: http://www.masterchef.com.au/recipes/crme-brulee.htm