making creme brulee
I rarely believe a particular recipe. When I want to cook something, I just look it up, and compare a few recipes, and get a feel for about how much of what I need, and whether particular special techniques are important or not. I really love being able to tell why they might choose to include the ingredients they include, and choose whether or not I want that in my dinner, and compare comments on recipes (too much mayonnaise!) to settle on how I want to proceed. This one has stumped me though.
It's not the brulee part, or the baking the custards tenderly in a pan of water, etc. I know you need egg yolks and heavy cream. I happen to have about a cup of heavy cream in the fridge, and (still) a heck of a lot of eggs. But how to combine them. I looked at 7 recipes, and this is what I found.
(egg yolks)/(cups cream)(egg yolks)/(Tbsp sugar)bake time & temp2.835 min at 3251.5.7545 min at 3252.520 min at 3502.75.6630 min at 3504135 min at 3252160 min at 2502.530 min at 300
So, granted, the bake time changes depending on whether the mixture is saucepan-cooked or not, and water bath is pre-boiled or not. But seriously, people - more than a factor of two variation in ingredient ratios?? Come on!
Clearly, this whole "creme brulee" phenomenon is just a segment of the spectrum from baked custards, through caramel flans, to egg tarts, and maybe the range that gets called creme brulee is pretty broad. So I'll take my 1 cup of heavy cream (I could've sworn I had more than that leftover - maybe it fell into D's coffee cup...) and somewhere between 1.5 and 4 eggs, and 2-4 Tablespoons of sugar, and cook it for 20 to 60 minutes. I'm sure it'll be delicious.
It's not the brulee part, or the baking the custards tenderly in a pan of water, etc. I know you need egg yolks and heavy cream. I happen to have about a cup of heavy cream in the fridge, and (still) a heck of a lot of eggs. But how to combine them. I looked at 7 recipes, and this is what I found.
(egg yolks)/(cups cream)(egg yolks)/(Tbsp sugar)bake time & temp2.835 min at 3251.5.7545 min at 3252.520 min at 3502.75.6630 min at 3504135 min at 3252160 min at 2502.530 min at 300
So, granted, the bake time changes depending on whether the mixture is saucepan-cooked or not, and water bath is pre-boiled or not. But seriously, people - more than a factor of two variation in ingredient ratios?? Come on!
Clearly, this whole "creme brulee" phenomenon is just a segment of the spectrum from baked custards, through caramel flans, to egg tarts, and maybe the range that gets called creme brulee is pretty broad. So I'll take my 1 cup of heavy cream (I could've sworn I had more than that leftover - maybe it fell into D's coffee cup...) and somewhere between 1.5 and 4 eggs, and 2-4 Tablespoons of sugar, and cook it for 20 to 60 minutes. I'm sure it'll be delicious.