French Creme Brulee Everyone Can Do

The French have a peculiar way of counting. While they do count from one to ten, their numbering system becomes different when it gets beyond 60.

So, 60 is soixante, 70 is soixante-dix, meaning 60+10. 71 is soixante-onze, which is 60+11. 80 is quatre-vingts - 4x20, 90 is quatre-vingt-dix, essentially 4x20+10, and so on and so forth. Now, if you're like me, struggling with simple mental calculation, you'll take a while to learn how to count in French.

And in French, 100 is "cent" (pronounced sont). So in French cookbooks, you're likely to come across this measure of volume, known as "centilitre", which is equivalent to one-hundredth of a litre. This has baffled me in the beginning, and led to a failed crème brûlée attempt by our Singaporean friends whom we passed our recipe to.

Although Crème Brûlée may be a dessert highlight of fancy expensive French restaurants, it is actually quite easy to make. Only thing that will potentially hold you back is the number of eggs that actually goes into it. You can still have a tasty crème brûlée even if you do not have a blow torch to caramelise the top surface.

Crème Brûlée
makes 6 cups

1 whole egg
4 egg yolks
80g castor sugar
a few drops of vanilla essence
400ml liquid cream (it was written as 40cl cream in cookbook)
brown sugar

Mix egg, egg yolks, vanilla, castor sugar together with a hand beater, add the cream in progressively. In case you're short of say 100ml cream (which we are always short of, as cream do not seem to come in 400ml packaging), you can always top it up with milk.

Pour mixture into crème brûlée cups (coffee cups may work well). This quantity makes 6 cups.

Cook in preheated oven of 130C. The cups have to be placed in a tray of water to moderate actual heat going through and prevent the eggs from become omelettes.

Cooking time is about 40-45 minutes, but be sure the cream has gelled in the cups. What we do is shake our oven a little bit (or tilt the cups), and you'll also see the custard surface a little puffed up, indicating that the inside is cooked. You also wouldn't want to overcook the custard. We cooked our perfect crème brûlée in 45 minutes in our fan-baked oven last night, but every oven is different, so some careful observation is necessary here.

Last time, we didn't check, the crème brûlée was still liquid when we served. So this part is essentially the trickiest part of the recipe. If still unsure, you may consider sacrificing one cup by piercing through the surface to check if it's cooked inside.

Put in fridge for 1 hour before serving. To serve, sprinkle brown sugar on top and put into a very hot oven (say 200-250C for 5 minutes, watch carefully to avoid burning the top) for the surface to caramelise before serving, or better still, get a blow torch. The advantage of having a blow torch is, the inside would still be very cold.

Even without a blow torch, you'll still be able to achieve a crispy caramel surface and hear a crispy hollow sound when you tap surface gently with your teaspoon. Heavenly.

This recipe comes from Camille Le Foll's Les Classiques de Camille, a classic French cookbook which has been regretably underused despite being full of wonderful French recipes. Not my fault, as it's all written in French.

And don't throw the 4 remaining egg whites away. Freeze them if necessary to prolong its lifespan and use them to make milo meringues. I'm also looking at other alternatives like macarons.