Thanks to its elegant French name and famous sugar crust, crème brûlée can sound a little intimidating. But it's actually pretty simple to re-create at home.
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00:00 Hey, it's Frankie from the Delish Kitchen studios.
00:03 I'm going to show you how to make creme brulee.
00:06 It's creamy, it's sophisticated,
00:08 it has that crackly sugar top.
00:10 It's a classy recipe that you will turn to every weekend.
00:14 Let's get into it.
00:16 There are only four ingredients in this classic creme brulee.
00:19 Heavy cream, vanilla bean, granulated sugar, and egg yolks.
00:23 Typically, people use heavy cream and milk
00:26 in their creme brulee,
00:27 but I got to study under German pastry chef Dieter Schörner,
00:31 who popularized the creme brulee in the '80s,
00:35 and he only used heavy cream in his,
00:37 which is why I'm using it in mine.
00:39 It's the most indulgent creme brulee you will ever have.
00:43 Since there's only four ingredients in this creme brulee,
00:45 if you want to go the extra mile,
00:47 instead of using vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract,
00:51 buy a fresh vanilla bean.
00:53 I love vanilla bean pods because they're beautiful
00:55 and they have this robust, fragrant flavor
00:58 that you're just not gonna get from anything
00:59 but the vanilla bean.
01:01 You're going to take your paring knife.
01:02 You're going to slowly slice it down the center
01:05 without breaking through the bean,
01:07 and then you're going to take the back of the paring knife
01:10 and slowly guide it across to remove all of the seeds.
01:14 In your saucepan over medium heat,
01:16 you're going to add your heavy cream,
01:18 your vanilla bean and the pod, salt, and sugar.
01:22 You'll mix that together
01:24 and bring it up to a low simmer.
01:26 After about three to five minutes,
01:27 it should come up to a simmer, which it's doing right now.
01:31 I'm gonna take it off the heat
01:33 and I'm going to let it rest for about three to five minutes
01:36 so that the flavors can kind of meld together.
01:39 We're gonna take out the vanilla bean pod
01:41 and then add it into the egg yolks to temper.
01:43 Tempering in this situation is taking the hot liquid,
01:47 the cream that we steeped,
01:48 and pouring it into the cold egg yolks.
01:51 I'm gonna mix those two things together
01:53 so that it creates this cohesive, creamy,
01:55 creme anglaise-like sauce before it goes into the oven.
01:58 You wanna do this really slowly and really gently
02:01 so that you don't scramble the eggs
02:03 and you don't scorch them.
02:05 Depending on how happy your eggs are,
02:07 you might get egg yolks
02:09 that are super vibrant yellow-orange.
02:12 Makes me think of Italy,
02:13 makes me think of those European farms.
02:17 So that's why our mixture looks like mustard,
02:19 like this mustard color,
02:20 which is actually such a beautiful thing.
02:23 You'll notice my ramekins are in a baking dish.
02:26 I'm going to divide the creme brulee mixture
02:28 into each of the ramekins.
02:29 They're four-ounce ramekins.
02:31 And then I'm going to take hot, tap water
02:33 and pour it into the base of the dish
02:37 until it reaches about halfway up the ramekin.
02:39 This will allow a slow, even cook in the oven
02:43 so the custard is nice and creamy.
02:45 It's really important.
02:46 You don't wanna cook this creme brulee too fast,
02:48 so use warm water instead of boiling water.
02:52 We're baking our creme brulee at 325
02:54 until it's just a little jiggly in the center.
02:56 This should be about 40 minutes.
02:58 We're about halfway through.
03:00 Creme brulee are in the oven.
03:01 They have a slight jiggle to them that you can see.
03:06 Just a little jiggle.
03:10 It's not done yet.
03:12 When it's done, or close to when it's done,
03:14 we'll stick a thermometer in.
03:16 And we want it to register at least 170 to 175.
03:19 We want it to taste like vanilla.
03:21 We don't want it to taste like eggs.
03:23 It's been 20 minutes, longer.
03:26 We're gonna pull this out.
03:27 And I'm gonna stick this guy in there.
03:30 It should read between 170, 175.
03:34 I'm gonna take it out carefully.
03:38 Now that I've taken these out of the oven,
03:41 I'm gonna carefully remove them
03:42 from the hot water bath using tongs,
03:45 put them onto a tray.
03:46 I'm going to let them cool at room temperature
03:48 for about 30 minutes,
03:49 and then continue to let them cool
03:51 and set up in the fridge for at least two hours.
03:54 These just came out of the fridge.
03:56 They cooled for a couple of hours.
03:57 If you wanna serve them warm,
03:59 you can pop them in the oven for a couple minutes at 350.
04:01 If not, serve it cold.
04:03 I'm gonna have it cold.
04:05 I'm gonna sprinkle a little bit of sugar on top of each.
04:08 And then we're torching.
04:10 In the Delish Test Kitchen, we use the propane.
04:13 At home, this is a butane torch.
04:15 That's what you use.
04:17 I'd say there's no such thing as too much sugar,
04:19 but I sprinkle about 1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar
04:22 onto each one of the creme brulees,
04:24 and then I torch the top.
04:26 And why you want more sugar than less
04:28 is so that you get a thick crust.
04:31 It's all about that crack.
04:33 When I'm using a bigger torch or a smaller torch,
04:35 I start from afar,
04:37 'cause I wanna kinda see where my flame is at,
04:39 how hot it is.
04:40 I'll go closer as I start to see
04:42 the golden brown beads form.
04:45 And what I'll do, too, is I'll go into circular motion.
04:48 (torch hissing)
04:49 Like this.
04:50 And then, as I get to the end,
04:52 when it starts to get too golden brown,
04:55 I'll hit it.
04:55 (torch hissing)
04:56 I'll do little dabs in certain places
04:59 that it hasn't caramelized yet,
05:01 because it's hard.
05:02 It's hard to cover the entire surface
05:03 when you have such a small flame,
05:05 so you have to be a little strategic with it.
05:07 This is molten lava sugar.
05:10 Do not touch it.
05:11 Let the bubble settle.
05:13 And when it forms a glass top,
05:15 you'll almost be able to see a little reflection.
05:18 Besides the torching,
05:20 this is the most satisfying part of eating creme brulee.
05:23 Cracking it.
05:25 (torch clacking)
05:27 Look at those pretty glass shards.
05:30 It's like eating sugar candy on top.
05:33 That custard is smooth.
05:35 It's creamy.
05:36 It's golden yellow.
05:38 I love seeing all those little vanilla beans.
05:40 It makes it a little more classy and sophisticated.
05:44 I gotta get into this.
05:45 Whoa.
05:46 That's really fricking good.
05:48 Creme brulee means burnt cream,
05:50 but what it really alludes to is the burnt sugar,
05:53 which is what I'm tasting in my mouth,
05:55 but with that subtle, creamy, vanilla texture
05:58 and flavor underneath,
06:00 it is such the perfect balance.
06:02 So good.
06:03 Cracking into that sugar layer is so satisfying,
06:07 and when I developed this recipe,
06:08 that's exactly the feeling I had,
06:11 and I wanted to give it to you.
06:12 Creme brulee sounds and looks fancy,
06:15 but it is actually foolproof.
06:17 There was four ingredients in this thing,
06:19 and you get your own little individual serving.
06:22 Nobody wants to share anyway.
06:23 And for more classic recipes just like this,
06:26 stick around at delish.com.
06:28 (upbeat music)
06:31 (upbeat music)