Food Wine Sleep

Ingredients List

240 ml (6 fl oz) fresh milk
750 ml (25 lf oz) heavy cream (35%)
150 gm (5 oz) sugar
10 pc egg yolk
2 pc vanilla beans
90 g (3 oz) fresh ginger root
Brown sugar for sprinkling (I like to use Muscovado sugar at times, it gives it a great slightly nuttier taste)
12 ovenproof dishes holding at least 100 ml
Blowtorch or salamander grill or broiler

Recipe Description

Crème brulé is perhaps one of the most popular desserts anywhere. There are some recipes of it already on Chef's pencil, but I still wanted to share mine as well. This recipe for crème brulé has an Asian twist as that the cream is infused with ginger. I feel that ginger, although in general mostly used for hot savoury dishes, adapts very well to custards and cream and adds that little bit of spice in life I am sometimes looking for. If you can get Muscovado sugar please try this with it. It really does have a different taste to it and balances great with the ginger.

Method Description

Preheat your oven to 120C and prepare a hot water bath for the poaching of the crème brulé.
Slice the vanilla beans lengthwise in half and scrape out the seeds with the back of a paring knife. Place the milk and the heavy cream into a saucepan, then add the vanilla bean, the vanilla seeds and half of the sugar to it as well.
Slice the ginger thinly and add to that mixture and bring to heat. Do not boil, keep the mixture just below boiling point at about 80C and infuse for approximately 15 minutes.
Strain out the ginger and the vanilla bean, leaving the vanilla seeds in the cream mixture.
In a mixing bowl, whisk together the remaining sugar with the egg yolks until foamy and the sugar has dissolved.
Gently combine both mixtures, by adding a little of the cream mixture to the egg yolks and then gradually adding the rest to it. Ensure that the cream mixture has cooled below 60C in order to ensure that the egg yolk mixture will not instantly cook when combining.
Fill the mixture into the ramekins provided
Cover the ramekins loosely with plastic wrap and place into the prepared water bath. Bake in the oven, for approximately 30 minutes or until the crème brulée has just set but is still wobbly in the middle. Remove from the water bath and set aside to cool.
Sprinkle the crème brulées evenly with the brown sugar. Wipe all side clean and gently caramelize the sugar with the blowtorch or under the broiler / salamander.

Note
If you are preparing this dessert a day ahead, ensure you are cooling the cregraveme bruleacutes to room temperature first, before placing in the refrigerator. Subsequently it is wise to take out the cregrave;me bruleacutes 30 minutes ahead of serving to gradually let them warm to room temperature before sprinkling.