Chocolate Creme Brûlée
This is a dessert to impress – I’ve had many creme brûlée and this recipe is the easiest, most foolproof recipe that provides exceptional results, that I’ve ever come across. It beats many restaurant-made creme brûlées!
Ingredients
- 600 ml cream
- 75 g good quality dark chocolate at least 70% cocoa
- 6 egg yolks
- 4 tablespoons caster sugar 2 tablespoons + 2 tablespoons extra for brûlée torching
- ¼ teaspoon flaky sea salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 100degC/210 Fahrenheit.
- Put cream and chocolate in a pot. Gently heat until almost about to boil (but do not let it boil). Take off the heat and whisk to melt in the chocolate. Whisk until smooth and the chocolate is fully incorpo-rated (there should be no brown specs of chocolate left). Allow mixture to cool to room temperature.
- In a mixing bowl, whisk egg yolks and sugar together until pale and the sugar is dissolved.
- Slowly pour the cooled chocolate cream into the egg mixture while whisking continuously. Whisk together until well combined. Pour custard into a jug (this will make pouring into ramekins easier) and divide custard between six small to medium ramekins.
- Cook for one hour until they are set, but still have a slight wobble in the middle. Refrigerate for a few hours to set.
- When ready to serve, evenly sprinkle one teaspoon of sugar over each brûlée. Use a blow torch to caramelise the sugar. Sprinkle a tiny pinch of sea salt (if using) over caramel while it is hardening. The caramel will harden after about a minute.
Notes
It’s important that the oven does not rise above 100°C/210 Fahrenheit (if it does you may end up with chocolate flavoured scrambled eggs). If you are a bit suspicious of your oven’s thermometer, place crème brûlée in a hot water bath to cook in the oven (at 150°C/300 Fahrenheit) to ensure even temperature control as water evaporates above 100°C.To do this, just place the creme brûlées in a dish with high sides, then pour boiling water into the dish to come halfway up the sides of the creme brûlées. You can prepare these up to a few days in advance, just leave them out at room temperature for 15 minutes before brûlée torching and serving. If you don’t have a brûlée torch you can use a hot grill (see tip below). A hint of sea salt with the hard caramel top sets these little beauties off.
If you use whole eggs and have the whites left over, you can make my pavlova.
Tip: If you don’t have a brûlée torch, preheat the oven top grill to very hot. Sprinkle sugar over the crème brûlée and place under the hot grill with the oven door open. Watch very, very carefully – as soon as the sugar starts to bubble and caramelise, about one minute, remove the crème brûlée. Sprinkle over sea salt and allow caramel to harden. Note: this method works best if the crème brûlée have been in the fridge overnight as the grill softens them a bit.