The magic of Bruleeing Creme....

My first job out of pastry school was in the pastry kitchen of the famed Le Cirque here in NYC. Within my first couple of weeks I was pulled aside and told to give all of my respect to the man who was considered the back bone of the entire pastry kitchen. Not the Executive Pastry chef (believe me, if you know what is good for you, you walk in shaking with fear you have so much respect for your chef!) but the man who had been working at Le Cirque pretty much longer then anyone. Francisco. He was the cutest, most hard working man I have ever met. He was always smiling no matter what. Francisco's pastry cream, creme brulee, lemon curd, bread puddings, creme anglaise was always made to absolute perfection. And the amounts of this stuff that he made was like nothing I had ever seen before. An average Saturday night at Le Cirque would have 500 covers (thats reservations to you civilians) along with 3 banquets going on in the other parts of the resturaunt. It was an amazing place to work. To this day, I consider my time there a lot like boot camp. You do your time there and you can go any where in the world and get respect for working at a place such as Le Cirque. A big thanks to The Maccioni family!

I was so excited when I got the shift in the pastry kitchen that put me working side by side with Francisco. I couldn't wait to learn from him. Anyone can read a recipe and make something.

Technique. It's the method, the techniques that are used to produce a silky, creamy, velvety, cold custard with that shiny, crackly crust from the burnt sugar. In a kitchen it is said that you only know a recipe after you have made it a thousand times. You tend to learn the essence, the nuances of a dish after you make it over and over and over again. Learning from the good and the bad.

This is exactly what I told Francisco. I told him that I wanted to learn exactly what he does to get pastry cream that is made so good, one of the wise men could have brought it as a gift to the baby Jesus. Francisco smiled at me with that sparkle in his eye and told me one of the tricks he uses to make his pastry cream and creme brulee.

Because of that sweet man, I now am able to make some of best damn creme brulee and pastry cream.

Good night and thanks for reading.

Just kidding, recipe below

Creme Brulee

1 cup sugar in the raw

4 cups heavy cream

1 vanilla bean

1 egg

6 egg yolks

1 cup refinded sugar

In a sauce pan add the heavy cream, refined sugar and the vanilla bean. (cut the vanilla bean in half and scrape out the seeds)

Whisk the egg and egg yolks in a bowl.

Heat the heavy cream just until the sugar* is dissolved, then slowly pour into the eggs while you are whisking the eggs. This is called tempering the eggs. Its bringing the eggs up to the same temperature to that of the heavy cream. Do this till you have all of the cream in the eggs, then pour it through a fine mesh sieve to get out any gross bits you don't want in your perfect creme brulee.

I like to use oval molds that are about one inch high. I feel that this really gives the perfect bite of creme to your brulee. Trust me, I'm so totally right.

Place the molds on a baking tray and pour the molds just over half full, place the tray in a preheated 250 degree oven and before closing the door, fill the molds up the rest of the way with the custard and then fill the baking tray with water. You are creating a ban marie you fancy bitch. Creme Brulee has to cook in a water bath or else the custard will just curdle and its gross. Unless you have a convection oven, then no water bath is needed.

Bake these things for about 30 minutes then shake them and it should shake like pudding if it is done, if you shake it and it looks like it is still liquidy, it's not done. Science. Make yourself a drink and bake on.

Once you get that puddin' shake, take out of the oven and once the water cools, take out of the pan and let chill over night. If you are in a mad rush, 2 hours should do the trick.

Spread a thin layer of the sugar in the raw over each custard then burn baby burn. Now who's the lucky sunuvabitch you gonna invite over to marvel at your glory

*I bet you didn't even notice the trick there.... Francisco taught me that it's better to add the sugar to the heavy cream rather then the egg yolks. Traditionally, the sugar is added to the egg yolks and whisked away then adding the heavy cream. The problem with that, is, that once sugar comes in contact with egg yolks, those sensitive little bitches start to cook. Thats right, once sugar touches raw egg yolk, it starts to cook. And with creme brulee, you are looking to cook these eggs just the slow, one time, in your fancy water bath or fancy convection oven.