Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Caramel Pots de Crème



This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was selected by Peggy from Peggy the Baker. She chose Caramel Pots de Crème, which is a caramel baked custard. Pots de Crème get their name from these fancy pots that you can get to make this particular dessert, but I just used some custard cups and some small coffee cups. There aren’t a lot of ingredients in this recipe, but they sure come together nicely. You can get the entire recipe on Peggy’s blog. And make sure that you check out the links from all the Tuesdays with Dorie bloggers.

This is a baked custard, which I am an expert at since joining Tuesdays with Dorie! This one has you caramelize some sugar first and then add the milk, cream and eggs on top of that. I made a half recipe and honestly was just a touch short of nearly every ingredient, but it turned out just fine. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to make caramel with just ¼ cup sugar, but no problem at all. I whisked everything together and got it ready for the oven. My oven is being weird so it took longer for my oven to heat than to make the Pots de Crème!

I covered this with plastic wrap, put it in the oven and then went to relax. During the baking time I wandered over to the TWD site and was reading the comments about this recipe and someone mentioned that plastic wrap in the oven can be bad news. I had forgotten that from the last time I made Chocolate Pots de Crème! I went and checked and my plastic wrap had pretty much melted. Luckily none of it got on the Crèmes, so I was ok. I decided to top these with sugar and caramelize the top, since that would go well with the caramel custard. Adding the sugar on top really enhanced the caramel flavor so I was glad I did that. You know, these look fairly simple, but my husband and I really liked them. Certainly a winner!

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, pages 388-389

7 comments:

Peggy the Baker said...

The caramelized sugar on top really makes your pots de creme look gorgeous! Re the plastic wrap: I think that the companies have changed their formula for making it and some absolutely don't work in the oven. I turned the oven down a smidge and used Wegmans Premium Plastic and crossed my fingers. This particular brand worked fine. Thanks for baking with me this week!

mike509 said...

What's with that wrap? So glad it didn't affect the wonderful pots de creme - they look wonderful!

Judy said...

Love the crunchy tops! I wonder if the brand of plastic wrap makes a difference? I just used foil.

Cocoa and Quinoa said...

Your creme bruleed top was a great idea, i'm sure it added a nice crunch. My plastic wrap melted too!

margot said...

Bruleeing the top was a great idea, your dessert looks fabulous! I'm impressed that you made caramel with just quarter cup of sugar.

TeaLady said...

What a cool idea to brulee the tops. I know that made these delicious treats even better. Have to try that!!!

spike. said...

I guess I've just been lucky because the plastic wrap has always worked for me. Glad your pots de creme was safe!