Crème Brûlée Sans Four - No-Bake Crème Brûlée

Laurent and I bought an oven today (Yay!!!). It's not hooked up yet and it looks like it might be a while before we get it running. So in the mean time I've been turning a lot of  oven recipes into stove top recipes. Tonight, I made my all time favorite dessert - crème brûlée. I wasn't sure it would turn out or not, because normally this requires an oven, and it was definitely an expirement. But Laurent loved it, and it had exactly the texture I was looking for.

Yum!

:
No-Bake Crème Brûlée
Serves 3

English Version

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1 Vanilla pod

5 egg yolks

3 Tbsp white sugar

Cain Sugar

1. Put the ramequins (the bowls that you want to make the cream in) in the freezer for at least twenty minutes.
2. Slice the vanilla pod down the middle without cutting it into completely separate parts. Heat the vanilla pod and the cream together on stove. Bring the mixture to a nearly a boil, without letting it actually boil. 
3. While the cream mixture is heating, mix the egg yolks and sugar together well.
4. As soon as it's heated, pour the cream into the egg and sugar mixture and stir well. Don't worry if it's still really thin at this point it will get thicker later.
5. Put everything back into the pan and heat slowly on the burner over low heat, letting the mixture thicken on the stove. Let it get really, really thick. Mine looked a little bit lumpy towards the end but turned out really smooth.
6. When thickened, take out the vanilla pod and pour the mixture into the frozen dishes. Leave the bowls in the refrigerator for at least an hour.
7. Take them out when the cream is thoroughly cooled and cover them with a light (we like ours a bit heavier 2-3 Tbsp) even coating of cane sugar.



8. Burn with a blow torch until you have a nice caramelized topping to your crème brûlée.
   
   OR
   Turn your oven's broiler on and leave the dishes (if they're oven safe of course) under the broiler for a minute or two, watching carefully so that it doesn't burn.

We received a cool crème brûlée burner iron (not kidding - that exists!) as a gift just after our wedding, so we burned ours with that. Pictures below. Laurent wanted to throw it away, but I ended up convincing him that it was useful :) .

Version Française

40 cl de crème liquide 30%

1 gousse de vanille

5 jaunes d'oeuf

3 cuillères à soupe de sucre blanc

Cassonade

1. Mettre les ramequins dans le congélateur quelques minutes avant de commencer à préparer la crème.
2. Faire chauffer a feu doux, la crème avec la gousse de vanille fendue en 2. 
3. Pendant ce temps, battre les jaunes d'oeufs en y ajoutant le sucre blanc. 
4. Quand la crème est bien chaude, mais pas encore bouillante, renverser la sur le mélange d'oeufs et remuer bien l'ensemble. 
5. Ensuite, remettre le mélange dans la casserole et chauffer à feu très doux jusqu'à ça devient très épais.
6. Puis verser la crème dans des ramequins et laisser au minimum 1 heure au réfrigérateur.
7. Au moment de servir, quand la crème s'est refroidie, sortir les ramequins du réfrigérateur et couvrir la crème avec une fine couche de cassonade (2-3 cuillères à soupe selon vos goûts).
   
   
   
8. Pour caraméliser nous avons utiliser un fer rond chauffé qui nous été donné dans un kit avec les ramequins.  Sinon, utiliser un chalumeau de cuisine ou passer les crèmes quelques instants sous le gril du four très chaud.

Bon appétit !