Miss Chessman's Cakes: Stop 12: Vermont Maple Creme Brulee

For this next recipe, I had to backtrack a bit to Vermont. The creme brulee recipe was the second I read when I got the book and I was very excited to make it (mostly I was excited about using that little torch), but when I realized that it could be done as easily over Passover, a holiday not known for the delicacy of its desserts), I decided to put it off.

I made the creme brulee on the same day that I made the cheesecake. The reasons for this were two-fold. One being that if the cheesecake was going to be an utter disaster, at least I'd have something else to feed my mother's friends, and the other being that unless I was planning on throwing a dinner party anytime soon, I was going to end up with six ramekins of creme brulee, and really, who needs that with bathing suit season looming so near?

Making the recipe itself was pretty easy, much easier than I would have expected. It's mostly just eggs, some more eggs, some egg yolks, and then some heavy cream to even out the fat content. It also called for a vanilla bean, and some fancy pouring hot liquid while whisking, which caused me to bring in a sous chef, but once all that was finished, it just went into the oven and baked. And baked. And baked some more.

That was the weird part. Brown said that it should have baked for 40 minutes, or until it didn't jiggle anymore. Mine were in the oven for a good half hour longer than called for, and I still think they were too jiggly. Eventually, we pulled them out because, well, come on...

After they came out of the oven they were supposed to cool and then go into the fridge to set. I seemed to have a thing for 14-part recipes that day. So, I took my one brulee and left the rest (and some tubinado sugar) in the capable hands of my capable mother. She served them to her friends and they were met with grand success. I waited for mine to cool and then also coated it with the turbinado sugar and ate it. Ironically, I never actually got to use the little torch, I just stuck it under the broiler for a few minutes and it was crisp and crunchy.

Also ironically, I realized, after bite number two of my own personal mini creme brulee, that beyond anything else, creme brulee is a custard and I don't like custard. It was quite impressive and now most of it is in my fridge. Oh well, we'll never make a sweet-tooth out of me...

The flavor was quite nice and it was met with approval by all who tried. I can't say that I noticed the maple flavor though, so that was a bit disappointing...