Eric: You know many cooks when they go into the little fancy cooking store, they see these little torches, these little butane torches, to make their puddings or to sear their chickens or whatever. And I just thought that I will show you what a real torch looks like.
Today we are going to make Crème Brule'. And we are going to use a torch to burn the sugar. And of course on gardenfork we have to do things in a big way, so, this is a big torch.
I was inspired to make Crème Brule' by watching my friend's video podcast crash test kitchen. Lenny and Los made it and Lenny he had this little torch and I thought I could have much bigger torch than that. But in America everything is bigger. So, like Australians they have the little torches and as Americans we have the big torch. For to make the Crème Brule', we are going to use a medium size torch we are going to use a regular propane torch like this, but this we'll get to you later.
With Cream Brule it's incredibly simple. It is a perfect for food for Eric. It is cream, and eggs, and a little vanilla, and a little sugar. And you mix it up, and you cook it a little bit and you throw it in the oven. And then boom you are done. Give Mark applaud for his work, even though he doesn't know who we are.
Yeah, burnt cream is a rich custard top with a hard sugar crust. It is rare to succeed and making that crust on the first try. So, practice once or twice, before serving it to people you want to impress. We are going to Bill and Else's tonight for dinner and...
Female speaker: Really impress them.
Eric: I don't impress them. But they are good friends. Most home cooks are forced to resort to the broiler for the final step, which is making the crust with the sugar. But every chef knows that the easy way to use it is to use a Propane Torch. If you have one in the garage or in the basement, try it. Make the custard in one bowl until you are good at, so you don't have to repeat the conversation process to four to six times.
Well we are going to make it in the little bowls.
Female speaker: We are making it once!
Eric: because we are making it once. I have never made this before. And the beauty is you get to watch me whether I succeed or not.
Female speaker: What is that?
Eric: This! I wasn't inspired by this, by Lenny and Los, also who have crashed his kitchen and of course I have the one up them because this is a 14 volt Ryoby and I think they had like a 9 volt. Once again in America everything is bigger. I don't have an 18 volt drill but may be someone out there could get me one. May be Ryobi would like to sponsor of our show. Big hint, Ryobi!
Okay, so first. The first thing you want to do is preheat your oven. What you also want to do, is you want to start heating up some water on the stove because, these little round the cans, are going to sit in a water bed, which is called a bal Marie, I think that is called a water-bath. Basically it makes the crusted cook more innerly. But the water has to be hard, otherwise you put in the ramekins with cold water, it is not going to cook.
So these are some our eggs from Bill Hillar. Just toss it back and forth from shell to shell. Okay, so we are going to take this and whisk it. You can use a fork, you can use a whisk, or you can use a special tool. Because we don't have a, an electric mixer here and I just happen to find one of these at a tag cell. Oops, got a spider on it. We are going to heat up the cream so that the sugar dissolves easier and I am going to cook you a little hybrid thing. I am going to hook, I am going to heat up half of the cream, and then mix up with the sugar and then I am going to add in this other part of the cream, the cold cream, that will bring the temperature down, and it will bake a lot better that way.
Half a cup of sugar goes in with the egg yolks. Now we are going to whisk the yolks and the sugar together with our special tool. That, it mixes really well. Don't you think? With Crème Brule' it seems like it's a tradition to use a vanilla bean. But we don't have any vanilla beans because we are in the middle of nowhere here. So, we are just going to use vanilla extract. Teaspoon of vanilla, this goes in slowly. Don't pour this in all at once or else you will have scrambled eggs.
Alright, it is a one cup of cool cream.
Female speaker: That's a cup.
Eric: This is a two cup measuring thing in it. I will putting in what says one cup. Alright so the cold milk, cold cream goes in. And this is our crème. So now we have to fill the ramekins. We are going to use a tray. Don't look too closely at our tray. And I go about two-thirds full. So, these go in, they said that put this end first, and then pour in the water. So, this should be between 170 and 175, 150. So the one recipe suggest between 170-175. So I think those are done. So we are going to pull those out.
Female speaker: Really.
Eric: Well, what do you want to do?
Female speaker: I thought you said they didn't have them.
Eric: Well I don't know! You know in the recipes they all say that if the custard isn't set firmly and then when you cool them down the custard sets. So, that's what we are going to do.
Female speaker: We follow directions?
Eric: Yeah! Read directions. Oh! That does looks set, oh, that looks good. It is also quick, those are really good. So, if you are wondering how to get the hot ramekins out of the hot water. Actually I have seen some tongs with rubber, with rubber tips these tongs and they might be better for ramekin grabbing.
Alright, life is good! We are going to cool this down now. Ideally you have like all day to do this and of course we don't we have to be at our friend's house in two hours. So I am going to let them cool for a minute and then I am going to put them in the freezer. But I don't think you are supposed to do that but I am going to.
Than we get to use the torch. I don't think we are going to use the really large torch because I think it will melt the ramekins. Are, you hungry?
Now we broke all the rules by putting these in the freezer. But then, that is what we do here at gardenfork is cutting edge cooking and gardening and how to -most of the recipes suggest using turbinado sugar, or raw sugar, a cup of brown sugar. But we are going to introduce this right away, white sugar because that is what we have. I don't know, you said a teaspoon, so I just grabbed a teaspoon.
Female speaker: May be you should do one at a time. I wonder this comes out lumpy, lumpy sugar in it.
Eric: The lumps will smooth out, believe me!
Watch and learn. This is a regular old Propane Torch. You could buy these at the hardware store. If you want you can get a Propane Torch that has an auto-start feature on that. I just use, this is, I called it a scratcher or a clicker. I don't like those little fancy ones you buy at the cooking stores because, first of all they run on -butane and they have a really small tank and when they run out, you got to buy another a little filler thing and stick it in there, and it's a pain. This is low-tech and simple.
Wow! It's getting liquidy. Wow! Look at that, that looks great. I think it should be thicker because you want. It's almost like flan right side up. You know flan has a caramel. You know it is, you are caramelizing the sugar and you just move this across quickly, so you don't burn it. I think it's such better than Lenny and Los creme. Oh I am burning, oh bad. Here when you put a lot of sugar on it, it takes longer to melt it. I will put a little less sugar on. Look at that, perfect. See we are getting it to melt. Burning my hands.
Okay so we are going to finish this and then go up to the camp and have dinner and this will be our dessert, while I have a tasting up at the camp.
I think they -these back here are the best ones.
Male speaker2: You look! They are very beautiful and they are like a little moonscape.
Female speaker: Yummy!
Eric: This is our first time Crème Brule' work at Bill and Else's camp, where there is no electricity. So, we have a --
Female speaker: Darkness.
Male speaker: We're living like the Walton's here. But we just had a really nice dinner. We're going to have some Crème Brule' here.
Female speaker: Yes.
Eric: Every one likes it. So, thank you for coming.
Male speaker2: Yeah, good night Eric.
Eric: Good night.
Male speaker2: Say good night.
Child: Good night.
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