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Crème au Caramel
Created by Chef Juliette
Crème au Caramel turns four plain ingredients into a trembling vanilla custard beneath liquid amber. The lesson is exact heat: old-gold sugar, then a water bath gentle enough to keep the custard smooth.
Crème au Caramel (caramel custard) teaches the discipline of heat. The one true thing to know before touching a pan is that caramel doesn't wait: have the mould warm, dry, and within reach before the sugar reaches old gold.
The classical entry assumed a copper sugar pan, a pastry cook practiced at judging syrup with bare fingers, broken ice for clothing cold aspic moulds, and enough portions for a full service. Your honest equivalents are a small pale saucepan, judgment by colour, one warm 1 litre mould, and an oven bain-marie. The finger tests and broken ice are brigade scaffolding and can go. Clothing the mould with caramel and poaching the custard gently are the dish, and they stay.
When it is right, the custard stands pale and trembling while its caramel loosens into a clear amber sauce around it. Pull the sugar the moment it reaches old gold. A shade darker and bitterness follows you all the way to the table.
Ingredients
granulated sugar for golden caramel
Quantity
½ cup (120 ml / 100 g), prepared according to The Cooking of Sugar (No. 2344) and used to clothe the mould by the coating principle in Another Method of Preparing Aspics de Filets de Soles (No. 916)
whole milk
Quantity
2 cups (500 ml / 515 g)
vanilla bean
Quantity
1
split lengthwise
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| granulated sugar for golden caramel | ½ cup (120 ml / 100 g), prepared according to The Cooking of Sugar (No. 2344) and used to clothe the mould by the coating principle in Another Method of Preparing Aspics de Filets de Soles (No. 916) |
| whole milk | 2 cups (500 ml / 515 g) |
| vanilla beansplit lengthwise | 1 |
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