My Favorite Restaurant Dessert

Tall Guy and I have a lot in common. Like, so much that it’s scary and was super weird at first. Ok, it’s still pretty weird now, but we’ve gotten used to the “I love such and such” “Me too” conversation.

So that brings me to our favorite dessert. Tall Guy isn’t a huge dessert fan, and I will admit that I prefer fruit desserts over sickly sweet ones most of the time (although what woman would ever really turn down chocolate?), but we both LOVE creme brulee. Up until this past week, I had kind of deemed creme brulee a “restaurant dessert” because of its difficulty and need for a chef’s torch, but after doing some research online, I decided to give it a go for Tall Guy’s birthday and I’m really happy with how it came out!

Creme Brulee (recipe originally from Allrecipes.com, with modifications based on recipe comments by CHEFPEON)Makes 2 servings

3 egg yolks1 1/4 c heavy cream
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp white sugar, divided
1 tbsp brown sugar

1. Preheat oven to 375°.
2. Beat egg yolks, 2 tbsps white sugar and vanilla in a bowl until creamy.
3. Heat cream in a saucepan over low heat until it starts to simmer. Remove from heat immediately.
4.  Pour a little of the hot cream into the egg mixture and whisk briskly.
5. Pour the egg/cream mixture into the rest of the cream and whisk. This will create a lot of foam on top. Skim the foam off with a strainer. Discard the foam. 6. Divide the mixture into 2 ramekins.
7. Set the ramekins in an oven-safe dish and put the dish on your oven shelf. Pour hot water into the dish until it reaches halfway up the sides of the ramekins.
8. Bake anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes. They are done with you shake the dish and the brulees jiggle slightly in the middle. It should be a jello-type jiggle, not a liquid jiggle.
9. Remove from oven and let the brulees cool in the water bath for about 15 minutes. Then remove the brulees and put them in the refrigerator to chill. They can be left there overnight.
10. Just before serving, sprinkle the tops with sugar and shake off the excess. Place under broiler until sugar is caramelized. Serve immediately. You can either top them with granulated (white) sugar or a mixture of the remaining sugar called for in the recipe (1 tbsp white sugar and 1 tbsp brown sugar). I tried one of each and liked the brown sugar mixture just a bit more.
Serving suggestion: Top with fruit or a stick of vanilla. As you can see, I put blackberries on mine.

Since I had never done anything like this before, I did a trial run of the recipe two days before the birthday dinner. It was definitely worth doing the trial run, as it was way easier the second time around, but the trial run came out really good, so don’t be scared to give this recipe a shot!

Even though I discovered that Tall Guy eats the entire bruleed topping first, which is just wrong, I was still really happy to make his favorite dessert for his birthday. And I’m pretty excited to be able to add creme brulee to my list of dessert accomplishments!