Crème brûlée

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Crème brûlée (French for "burnt cream"; in English, in French) is a dessert consisting of a rich custard base topped with a layer of hard caramel, created by burning sugar under a grill, or with a blowtorch or other intense heat source. It is usually served cold in individual ramekins.

The custard base is normally flavoured with just vanilla, but it can be enhanced with chocolate, a liqueur, fruit, etc. Sometimes the hardened sugar on top will be given a Maillard reaction, or caramelization, by igniting a thin layer of liqueur sprinkled over the top (illustration).

History

Origins of the dessert are in dispute among Britain, France, Germany, The Czech Republic, and Spain. It appeared in France in François Massialot's 1691 cookbook, and the French name was used in the English translation of this book, but the 1731 edition of Massialot's Cuisine roial et bourgeoise changed the name of the same recipe from "crème brulée" to "crème à l'Angloise". In the early eighteenth century, the dessert was called "burnt cream" in English.

In Britain, at Trinity College, Cambridge, where crème brûlée was introduced in 1879, the college arms were "impressed on top of the cream with a branding iron".

See also

• Crema catalana
• Crème caramel
• Egg tart
• Flan

Recipes

• Creme Brulee

Bibliography

• Alan Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food, ISBN 0192115790.
• "Origin of Crème Brulée", Petits Propos Culinaires 31:61 (March 1989).

References

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Last updated on Wednesday March 12, 2008 at 22:35:57 PDT (GMT -0700)
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