Coconut Sugar Creme Brulee

It's been a million or so years since I have written here. For most of this fall and winter I had no appetite to either cook or eat anything much. There are Major Life Event-type reasons for this, which I won't get into here. Suffice it to say that I am quite relieved to have regained my appetite for both cooking and eating!

And so I introduce to you the coconut sugar Creme Brûlée. This is a creamy, dreamy, decadent, and absolutely super-delicious little confection. I LOVE the satisfying cracking sound your spoon makes as you tap open the crispy top of the pudding into the luscious creamy stuff underneath. This dessert is not vegan. Very much not. I made six servings in little ramekins and have had nearly an entire week of creme brulee days! Good for the soul, if not exactly the most healthy eating...

I use a little butane-powered kitchen torch to brulee the tops...you can put them in the oven, too, but these little torches are pretty cheap, and really fun to use. I mean, it's a torch! I have also tried blackening peppers and melting cheese with it. Just because I can!

Coconut Sugar Creme Brûlée

makes six servings

2 cups (one 500 ml container) whipping cream
5 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
6 tbsp coconut sugar (I get mine from shoprealfood.ca online grocery service in St. John's!)
a little extra coconut or maple sugar for the top

Preheat the oven to 325 C. Fill your kettle up and boil it.

Pu the cream and vanilla in a small heavy-bottomed pot and heat slowly over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until scalding hot and just beginning to simmer. Do not turn the heat up too much as you do not want the cream to, well, brûlée...at this stage anyway!

Meantime, separate your egg whites from your yolks, and put the yolks in a big mixing bowl. The whites will not be used in this recipe. I froze mine in a bag for later use as I didn't really want to make more dessert right now!

Beat the yolks well with the sugar until the sugar is dissolved and the yolks are thick and creamy. Put the hot cream in a jug for pouring and with the mixer running, add just a little bit at a time to the eggs and beat it in, so that you do not curdle your eggs by adding too much hot liquid at once. Once you have about a cup added you can add more at a time. Skim the frothy stuff off the top.

Put the mixture back in the jug to make pouring into your ramekins or other small dishes easier. Arrange 6 dishes in a casserole with deep sides. Pour an equal amount in each ramekin. Then carefully pour the pre-boiled water in around the ramekins so that it comes up about halfway up. Carefully place the pan into the oven and bake until they are set, which is when you gently shake the pan and the brulees are still wobbly but not totally liquidy...they will continue to set as they cool. This can take between 1/2 hour and an hour so I would check them every 10 minutes or so once the 1/2 hour mark hits.

When they are done, carefully remove the ramekins (I used tongs) and put on a baking rack to cool to room temp before popping them in the fridge, covered, for a few hours until very cold.

Then comes the fun part! When you are ready to eat, take the brulee out of the fridge and sprinkle about 1/2 tsp of either coconut or maple sugar on top. Swirl the sugar around so that it coats the whole top of the dessert, then pour off any extra. With your torch on a medium setting, brulee the top, moving the torch constantly and allowing the sugar to caramelize and bubble. Glory in the smell! Wait five minutes or so until the sugar has hardened into that crackly magic crust. Then, with great anticipation, heartily crack open what promises to be a little cup of absolute heaven.

Apparently you can also brulee the tops by putting them close under the broiler of your oven and cooking for 5-10 minutes, rotating the pan frequently and keeping a very close eye on them. I cannot vouch for this particular method...

The brulees keep well in the fridge in pre-brulee stage. Unless you eat them all.