Friday, March 8, 2013

FFwD: Cheesy Creme Brulee

I didn't really think through my dinner plan for this week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Cheesy Creme Brulee. I read through some comments about it on the FFwD website, looked up the recipe, said, "Hey! I have all the ingredients for that!" and made it, despite the fact that it's an appetizer recipe. If I served it with a salad or something, it would have seemed a little more reasonable than sticking two ramekins of cream, egg, and cheese in front of Matt for dinner. Woops.

My first problem with this recipe is that my stupid oven's lowest setting is 190 degrees Celsius, which is 374 degrees Farenheit. Much higher than the recipe requires. Because of this, I didn't have a gently-baked custard. Mine boiled, which made it pretty difficult to determine when it was done. There was no clean insertion of a fork into a calm custard. I took a wild guess as to whether or not they were ready to come out, let them sit for a while, and they turned out fine. The custard de-liquified as it cooled. Phew!

I couldn't ge tthe cheese on top to brown much in the broiler. Oh well. 

I don't know if it was because of the boiling, if it was the cheese I used, or if they were meant to be this way, but mine were very greasy.

One ramekin's worth tasted good. The second ramekin felt heavy and too rich.

These were surprisingly easy to make, and with a nice fresh salad, one would make a lovely lunch. I do not recommend eating two with nothing else to lighten it up, though.

9 comments:

  1. I think these would be lovely paired with a salad.
    Your oven woes sound difficult - a challenge, for sure!

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  2. Very strange oven too bad it just didn't go down to 300 that would have worked. This proved to be more challenging than it should have.

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  3. These definitely paired well with a salad (not the salad I chose, but something simple would be good) - I loved them, but the greenery really helped with the richness. Mine were a little greasy too the first night, but the leftovers haven't been. Weird. Still, oven issues and all, yours look good! I love that burnt edge, mmm!

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  4. Love the idea of pairing these with a salad. Oven issues can be frustrating - but your cheesy creme brulee came out lovely.

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  5. I wonder whether putting the ramekins in a water bath would have helped lower the actual heat. Not sure whether the physics of that makes any sense. This would be great with a salad for a (sort of) light meal. It looks good.

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  6. Mine are in the oven now. I left out the butter in the hopes of cutting down on the greasiness, let's hope that I don't end up regretting it.

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  7. I served this as an appetizer, but it would make a great lunch with salad. Interesting how resilient the custard was - it's good to know that it can boil and still set!

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  8. What a beast of an oven! Makes one wonder why all the baking or roasting in the oven has to start at that degree celsius/farenheit. Did Matt like it? Greasy? Hmmm, wonder if all that fast and furious heat did that? It looks great though! I will make mine at the end of the month as I made the spinach this week (went in order from the vote tally list).

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  9. I had oven issues or maybe just user error! Mine didn't set well...but the taste was lovely.

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