Pot de crème aux mûres

So I was “home” in Durham this past week and acquired a set of ramekins from my mother’s house. These were not the white, rather deep affairs I hold in my heart as the Platonic ideal of a ramekin, but rather short brownish ceramic plates. Still, they were flame safe, and that’s really all that matters.

On Tuesday night, I set “Crème Brûlée Experiment 1″ (CBE1) in motion. The first step to making crème brûlée is, of course, the crème, which is just a simple custard of egg yolks, sugar, vanilla, and heavy cream. I used Alton Brown’s recipe, but substituted vanilla bean paste because even the fancy grocery store I went to didn’t have vanilla beans (so far as I could tell without communicating with another human). I also purchased blackberries, because I love them. These were ultimately the downfall of CBE1, but it was a delicious downfall, and so I submit to you, dear readers,

Pot de crème aux mûres (6 servings)

Ingredients:

• 1 quart heavy cream
• 1/2 tbsp vanilla bean paste (I used more but the vanilla kind of overwhelmed the other flavors a little. the Law of Vanilla Conversion is 1 bean to 1 tbsp paste)
• about 1 cup sugar, probably a little more
• 6 egg yolks
• “some” blackberries!
• 1-2 tsp rubbed sage (optional)
• water

Custard!

• Preheat oven to 325˚F.
• In a small saucepan bring the cream and vanilla to a boil over medium heat, then remove from heat, cover, and allow to steep for 15-20 minutes.
• In a bowl, whisk together egg yolks and 1/2 cup of sugar.
• Whisking the egg-sugar mixture continuously, add the vanilla-cream in a slow, continuous stream.
• Place desired number of blackberries in each ramekin, pour custard mixture into ramekins. The berries need not be submerged, and it is cuter with them “peeking out” anyway. :v
• Place custards on an oven-safe tray or dish with warm/hot water reaching up the sides of the ramekins half way
• Bake until sides of custards are firm, but the center is still “very slightly jiggly.” This took mine around 35 minutes, but my ramekins are shallower than most.
• Refrigerate custards over night, or for at least 2 hours.
• Bring the custards to just below room temp before serving.

Now we are going to make a blackberry-sage syrup to pour over these mofos. This was pretty ad hoc.

• Heat a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, and, when the pan is hot, add remaining blackberries.
• When the berries begin to hiss and their little sub-berries start to explode, bring the heat to medium and add enough water to make it 1/8 inch deep (do not submerge the berries, we are making syrup, not boiling them).
• Add the sage, if you want it. I think it adds a nice herbal freshness to the syrup, but that’s me.
• Add sugar in stages (tablespoons here and there), and keep enough water in the pan so that you can’t see the bottom of the pan through the bubbles.
• When all the sugar is gone, and the syrup coats the back of a spoon, you are done.
• Strain and pour syrup over the pots de crème.
• Serve pots de crème to your friends so that you can dream of someday looking svelte by comparison.

The finished product:

I will definitely keep you all apprised of future crème brûlée experiments. :9