This Earl Grey Crème Brûlée is so freaking good and I hope you try it. I would definitely make this for myself again or friends for a dinner party.
I just had to Google what crème brûlée means. I can’t believe I had to do that and couldn’t just figure it out, yikes!I’m a huge Earl Grey fan, so whenever I can infuse it into something, I’m going to try. My usual go-to is infusing it into some kind of bourbon or simple syrup to add to cocktails. Lavender Early Grey, if you can find some, is AWESOME!
I’m not much of a baker, but like I have said before, I can only get better if I try. I felt pretty confident going into this because it didn’t seem all that hard, and I have eaten about 1,000 crème brûlées in my life. Well, I was wrong. My first batch came out disgusting and soupy. Where did I go wrong?
Well… I read too far into the comments of people instead of just going off the recipes I saw. People were saying that in order for it to be a proper “crème brûlée” you have to keep it at a very low temperature and cook it for an hour. Whereas the actual recipes I saw said to cook it between 300-350 degrees and for 40 minutes. I should have just listened to them and not Gary from Denver. Thanks Gary!
Good news is I didn’t give up when I failed, and my second batch came out great!
Ingredients (makes 6- 4oz cups)
- 2-3 Earl Grey tea bags, use 3 if you want a heavier flavor
- Dark chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 5 egg yolks
- ½ cup of granulated sugar for baking
- ¼ cup of granulated sugar to create the topping
- Sprinkle of salt
- 1 ½ tsp. pure vanilla extract
- 3 cups of heavy whipping cream
Directions
- Heat oven to 325 degrees.
- In a pot bring 3 cups of water to a boil, this will be used later.
- In another pot over medium-low heat, add half of your cream, ½ cup of sugar, salt and your tea bags. Whisk this until it comes to a gentle boil, then add vanilla and whisk again. Remove it from heat and whisk in the rest of your cream and let sit for 5 minutes.
- Beat your eggs in a heat proof bowl. Remove tea bags once the 5 minutes are up, whisk one last time and SLOWLY pour your hot mixture into your eggs, whisking it like your life depends on it.
- You can strain this now if you see a lot of lumps. If not, pour this into a spouted measuring cup (easier to pour from).
- Place your cups inside of a baking pan with high sides. Place a spoonful of chocolate chips at the bottom of your crème brûlée dishes and evenly pour the custard over the top.
- Now pour boiling water into baking pan around crème brûlée dishes until it fills to halfway up their sides.
- Put it in the oven and bake until they reach an internal temperature of 170 degrees. You are looking for them to be solid but with a slight jiggle in the middle. The amount of time you cook these is going to depend on how deep your dishes are. The shallower ones may only take 28 minutes were as the deeper ones might take up to an hour.
- Remove your pan from oven and carefully place dishes on a wire rack to cool for one hour. Once they have, move them to the fridge for at least two hours. Try not to have anything stinky in your fridge or it may affect the flavor. If you’ve got some diced onions chilling in the fridge, remove them. The custard will take on the onion flavor.
- I bought a hand held torch for this next part. It’s fun. However you can use your broiler instead, just be careful it doesn’t burn. Sprinkle some sugar on top of your crème brûlée cups. I like to give the cups a shake to make sure the sugar gets all over the top. Now heat it with your torch or place it under a broiler and keep a close eye!