Is there a more classic dessert than the beloved creme caramel? We used to eat it so often at home while growing up as kids. We would be coming home from a weekend visit to my grandparent’s farm house, carrying so many home grown products and the inevitable stack of fresh laid eggs. Transforming them into delicious dishes will be simply a matter of time and a pleasure my mother would really relish. We, as kinds would be helping of course, especially when it comes to making creme caramel. The easy part would be burning the sugar and whisking the egg mixture. But the hardest part would be the patience to wait and to wait until the creme caramel is out of the oven, until it has cooled and set, until we could finally take a spoon and dive into a mini-pot of heavenly delight. I am not a child any more, and I still find making the creme caramel part easy, but waiting to sample one extremely, unreasonably, exasperatingly difficult. And who wouldn’t when every spoon full of golden brown custard and liquid caramel kehlibar tastes like the sweetest thing on the earth?
{Original recipe from Mary Berry}
Ingredients
For the caramel
- 160g sugar
- 6tbsp water
- unsalted butter, for greasing the ramekins
For the custard
- 4 free-range eggs
- 25g sugar
- 600ml full-fat milk
- 1 Vanilla sugar essence Dr. Oetker
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 150C. Warm the ramekins in the oven, so they are warm when the caramel is poured in.
2. First make the caramel. Pour the sugar and six tablespoons of water into a clean stainless steel pan. Dissolve the sugar slowly, stirring with a wooden spoon over a low heat. When there are no sugar granules left, stop stirring and boil until the sugar turns a dark copper colour.
3. Remove immediately from the heat to ensure the caramel does not burn. Quickly pour the caramel into the warmed ramekins. Set aside to cool and become hard. (Do not put in the fridge because the sugar will absorb moisture and go soft and tacky). Once hard, butter the sides of the ramekins above the level of the caramel.
4. For the custard: whisk the eggs, vanilla essence and caster sugar together in a bowl until well mixed.
5. Pour the milk into a saucepan, gently heat over a low heat until you can still just dip your finger in for a moment, then strain the milk through a fine sieve onto the egg mixture in the bowl. Whisk together until smooth, then pour the mixture into the prepared ramekins.
6. Stand the ramekins in a roasting tin and fill the tin half-way with boiling water from a kettle. Cook in the oven for about 50 minutes or until the custard has set. Do not overcook the custard – check around the edges of the dishes, to make sure no bubbles are appearing.
7. Take the crème caramels out of the oven, remove the ramekins from the tray and set on a cooling rack. When cool, transfer to the fridge overnight so that the caramel is absorbed into the custard.<
8. To serve, loosen the sides of the custard by tipping the ramekin and loosen with a small palette knife round the edges. Place a serving dish on top of the ramekin and turn upside down.
