Creme Caramels
This is a recipe for Creme Caramels from Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course.
There are a lot more impressive desserts (like the flourless Black Forest Gateau) in this recipe book but, in the end, I had to go with this because 1. It uses the whole egg which is unusual, a bit healthier, and (unless you’re way more on top of things than me) less wasteful. 2. It uses ingredients that sometimes I have to use up. I don’t regularly buy milk or cream, sometimes though I have to and this recipe is useful for those times. and 3. I love Creme Caramels.
The first time I made this I made the caramel a little too dark. It still turned out tasting great but half the caramel stuck to the dishes. The recipes says that you should caramelize the sugar until it’s about two shades darker than golden syrup. If you end up with a colour that is darker than this the caramel will taste a little more bitter, personally I don’t mind that, in fact I like it – but you’ll need to add a tablespoonful more or so of water to the caramel so that it doesn’t turn hard while cooling.
So this is the last recipe-book recipe I’ll be adding to the twimii this year. I think I will do this again next year, using different books then obviously. I ended up loving every one of the recipes I’ve tried. The one I’ve made most often is a Delia Smith recipe – can you guess which one? The Lemon Soufflé Omelette. I always have those ingredients to hand, it’s so quick and easy to make, it’s not heavy and people like it. Me especially.
I do love these creme caramels as well but, thankfully really, I don’t use too much milk and cream normally.
Ingredients
- 150ml whole milk
- 275ml single cream
- 4 large eggs
- 40g soft brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon water, tap hot
- 110g white granulated or caster sugar
- vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 150C.
- Lightly grease an 850ml dish or 4 large ramekins or 6 small ones. Place the lightly greased dish/es into a large roasting tin.
- Put the white sugar in a medium-sized saucepan and heat. When the sugar begins to melt, bubble and darken, stir and continue to cook until it has become a uniform liquid syrup, about two shades darker than golden syrup.
- Take the pan off the heat and cautiously add the water - it may splutter and bubble quite considerably but will soon subside. Stir till smooth and pour it into the lightly greased dish/es, tipping it around to coat the sides a little.
- Pour the milk and cream into another pan and leave it to heat gently while you whisk together the eggs, brown sugar and a few drops of vanilla extract in a large bowl. Then when the milk is steaming hot pour it onto the egg and sugar mixture, whisking until thoroughly blended.
- Pour the creamy egg mixture into the dish/es. Pour water into the roasting tin so that it surrounds the dish/es up to 2/3 their depth. Carefully place in the oven and leave to bake for 1 hour.
- Cool and chill the creme caramel, until you're ready to serve it. Free the edges by running a knife around before inverting it/them onto plate/s.
