Crème Brûlée

Ingredients

• 600 ml double cream
• 1 vanilla pod, split and scraped
• 6 egg yolks
• 80 g caster sugar
• 40 g caster sugar, for the tops

Method

1. Infuse the cream

   Bring the cream to just below a simmer with the vanilla pod and seeds, then take it off and leave it 15 minutes. Infusing off the heat gets far more vanilla out than boiling it would.

   15 min

2. Whisk the yolks

   Whisk the yolks and caster sugar until pale but not foamy. Air whisked in now turns into bubbles on the surface of the baked custard.

3. Temper

   Pour the warm cream onto the yolks in a thin stream, whisking constantly, then strain. Tip it in all at once and you have scrambled eggs; straining catches the chalaza and any bits that did set.

4. Bake in a bain-marie

   Pour into ramekins, set them in a roasting tin, and pour hot water halfway up the sides. Bake at 140°C until they wobble as a single mass in the middle. The water bath is what stops the edges setting into rubber before the centre has set at all.

   35 min

5. Chill

   Cool, then chill for at least four hours. A warm custard will not take a brûlée topping — the sugar melts down into it.

   4 h

6. Burn the top

   Blot any condensation off the surface, sprinkle a thin even layer of sugar and blowtorch it until it is amber, not black. Too thick a sugar layer never melts through and stays gritty. Eat within an hour of torching, while it still cracks.