Cookbook club: October

Episode 2: Frightful Feasts

It happened again! The new tradition of Cookbook Club with my three best friends continues, and this time my dish was inspired by my first engagement gift. At our engagement party, my soon-to-be mother-in-law gave me four cute sage green ramekins. So of course I had to make.... drum roll...CREME BRULEE! I have been wanting to make this dish for a long time, and now I had the tools!

The ingredients are few and the techniques are reasonably easy:

1 pint of Heavy Cream

a pinch of Salt

5 Eggs

1/3 cup Sugar

1 Tablespoon Vanilla

• First of all, start boiling 4-6 cups of water (use more if you have a larger casserole dish, I promise this will all make sense)

• Add the heavy cream and salt to a small saucepan and bring to a boil. When it starts to steam, remove it from the heat

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees (I would take off the top rack before turning on your oven to give you plenty of room)

• In a bowl mix together the eggs and sugar

• Re-warm the cream until it starts to steam.

• Once steaming, add in the vanilla

**I needed another set of hands for this next part, but I am also cursed with being terrible at pouring things!

• In a slow stream, pour in half of the cream mixture and whisk it into the egg mixture. (Whisk fast so the eggs do not scramble.)

• After a minute, add in the remaining half of the cream mixture

• Pour your boiling water into the casserole pan and place the ramekins in the lasagna dish

• Bake for 30 to 40 minutes until when you touch the top of the Creme Brulées, they feel slightly solid

• Take them out and let them cool in the freezer (still in the casserole pan with water) for about an hour and a half

• Ten minutes before you are ready to eat, take them out of the freezer

• Place a layer of sugar on top of each of them, and place them in the oven to broil (watch carefully - this only takes a couple of minutes) until the sugar on top melts and hardens slightly

• Let cool and crack them open!!