This truly great-tasting dessert can be made so simply. Crème brûlée (burnt cream) is a smooth custard dessert with a caramelised sugar topping, often overlooked by bakers to sell, leaving it to the restaurateurs. If you have retail plus a coffee shop, you have two opportunities for a sale.

Crème brûlée is a rich, heavy custard made from cream rather than any milk. The finishing touch of a warm crispy caramelised sugar topping, sitting on top of the chilled ultra-smooth custard, seems to complement each other.

Unable to find ramekins for under 10p each, I managed to source some dessert foils that look and feel high quality. I also use these foils for individual profiterole desserts. The crème brûlee is baked, sold and eaten out of the same vessel.

Recipe

This recipe makes enough for 12 x 110g crème brûlées

Ingredient Amount

Whipping cream 1,000g

Vanilla essence to taste

Caster sugar 125g

Whole egg 100g

Egg yolk 170g

Total weight 1,395g

Method

1. Boil the whipping cream and vanilla essence.

2. Blend together the caster sugar, whole egg and egg yolk.

3. Pour the boiled cream into the sugar/egg mixture, stirring continuously, then pour into ramekins or foils (110g for foil size 90mm x 35mm).

4. Bake at 170ºC in a water bath for about 20-25 minutes. To check if baked, insert a knife and it should come out clean.

5. When cool, place in fridge to chill.

6. To finish, sprinkle with caster sugar and caramelise with a blow torch. Keep the blow torch moving around the top to achieve even caramelisation of the sugar.

7. Alternatively, leave the top un-caramelised and sell with a sachet of sugar for your customer to finish.