Crème Brûlée (Pierre Hermé)

Today, I propose one of the most classic recipes of French pastry: crème brûlée. It is indeed a rather emblematic dessert, found on the menu of many brasseries and French restaurants, and when well executed, it is so good ;-) I had quite a few egg yolks to use, so this was the ideal recipe to use them up; here the proportions correspond to the amount of yolks I had, 9, so about 180g. I used the recipe from Pierre Hermé that I had already used in my raspberry crème brûlée tart and I ended up with about ten well-vanilla-flavored crème brûlées. It is an extremely quick dessert to prepare, but you need to allow enough time for the low-temperature cooking and the resting in the refrigerator, which is essential to have the creams set properly.

Preparation time: 5 minutes + 30 minutes of infusion + about 1h of cooking + at least 3h of resting

For about 8-10 crèmes (depending on the size of your ramekins):

Ingredients:

180g of egg yolks (about 9 yolks)
500ml of whole milk
500ml of heavy cream
180g of granulated sugar
Vanilla: at least 2 or 3 pods, I used "vanilla heart" so I don't know the equivalent in pods (I took a small teaspoon) but I recommend using quite a bit to have a pronounced flavor
QS of brown sugar

Recipe:

Pour the milk, cream, and split and scraped vanilla pods or powdered vanilla into a saucepan and bring the mixture to a boil. Then let the liquid infuse for about thirty minutes.

In a mixing bowl, beat the egg yolks with the sugar.

Once the milk is infused, pour it over the eggs while stirring well. Then pour the mixture into ramekins and bake in the preheated oven at 100°C.

For the cooking time, it’s quite difficult to say because it depends on your oven and the size (diameter and thickness) of your ramekins. The main rule to follow is not to exceed 100°C, and the cooking generally lasts between 45 minutes and 1h15. The creams should be set but still wobbly in the center (you should be able to touch it with a finger to check that the cream is set and no longer liquid). Personally, with fairly thick creams, I left mine for 1h30 before taking them out.

Then, let them cool a bit at room temperature and then refrigerate them for at least 3h.
Just before serving, sprinkle them with brown sugar and caramelize them with a blowtorch. For caramelization, I proceed in several stages to achieve a nice crunchy layer: I sprinkle a small amount of sugar, use the blowtorch, and repeat two or three times.
I recommend caramelizing them at the last moment, to have the contrast of the cold cream and the crunchy but still warm caramel...