Créme-free? Brûlèe
If rich creamy custard redolent of vanilla and rich burnt sugar is your thing this is the one for you. The takeaway for this recipe is that it can be made dairy-free with nut milk creamer, it offers the same smooth lusciousness* as real cream does when whisked with golden egg yolks. The custard lies silkily beneath a glossy amber shell, that the crack of the spoon, the shatter of the shell reveals it in the most yielding of ways.
Post-script 10/24: Yeah that sounds good at your end, but there’s a d’oh! moment tied to this recipe. For this website, the one you're currently reading, I wanted to get the perfect shatter shot for the Caramellow on the Salon page (go visit, it’s fun). I went to a French Patisserie in two states: New York and New Jersey but couldn’t get what I wanted so I decided to make my own.
It’s a very basic and simple recipe that utilizes ingredients on hand. I scanned the contents of my fridge, eggs? check, cream? yup. And then I spied the Nutmilk Creamer I sometimes add to my Morning Cuppa. Should I? Yeah why not, just for fun and curiosity.
So I set about to make my nut milk creamer version, and in a trick my mind played on me I mistook the new fangled creamer for the nut-milk creamer. Of course, ! couldn’t believe how luscious it was, the creamy color and vanilla redolent scent I rhapsodized about it elegaically in my Stories, I even zoomed a closeup of the real dairy creamer (in my defense the print was miniscule). The CB’s came out jiggling ever so demurely , under anglassy amber sugar shell it was a triumph of form and texture. Had I reinvented the wheel?
I served it to my dairy-free guests for dessert on Friday night.
“I can’t believe the consistency! That’s some nut milk creamer there”
It was then I felt a sinking feeling, my subconscious connected the dots. I headed straight to the fridge, and read the fine print. I had a serious case of brand confusion. Is that a sign of early onset? Regardless I had to own up. Admit that I used the new lifestyle brand coffee creamer confusing it with a new brand of Nut milk/Coconut Creamer. The last time I felt this wretched I had slept through an exam in college.
So to be above board with the recipe below I tried the recipe with vegan nut milk coconut creamer. And here’s the créme-free brûlée verdict: Texture- light. frothy, almost souflée like, with a jiggly jello quality. Definitely not as thick, and well..creamy as the dairy version.
Taste: close to the cream version due to the eggs and vanilla, but it had a subtle coconut undertone that was not necessarily bad.
Appearance: a little mottled, with a slightly gray overtone- but a spectacular burnt sugar shell will conceals any inquities.
Here’s the truth…You can’t improve on a classic, but you can modify for an acceptable change.
2 cups cream or nut milk creamer
1 tablespoon vanilla, or one split vanilla bean
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 egg yolks
1/3 cup sugar + more for brûléeing
Preheat oven to 325F
Bain Marie: Place 4 oven-proof ramekins in a pyrex baking dish, fill halfway up side with warm water
In a medium saucepan heat cream, salt, and vanilla over low heat. Mix until it just begins to bubble around the edges. Remove from heat
Combine egg yolks and sugar and beat until light and frothy.
Stir 1/2 cup of creamer mixture into eggs and whisk well. Then add the rest of the egg mixture, mix together.
Pour custard in equal amounts into the ramekins.
Bake in oven for 40-45 minutes, until the sides are set -the middle will still jiggle. (If making the dairy free version let firm in frisge)
Let cool and then evenly sprinkle the surface of the ramekins with sugar. Here you can either BROIL in top rack for 2 minutes OR blowtorch it! Quel Fun!
