Classic Crème Brûlée

I did not plan to make crème brûlée last week. I don't even have a funny story as to why I ended up making it. It is pretty straight forward, I bought a carton of heavy cream when it was on sale. I noticed that the best before date was coming up. I took Baked Elements off the shelf and happened upon their classic crème brûlée recipe. Reading through the ingredient lists, I noticed that it allowed me to use up all of the heavy cream. Score!

Classic Crème Brûlée
Recipe adapted from Baked Elements

2 cups of heavy cream
1 vanilla bean
6 large egg yolks
1/2 cup of granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon of salt
3 tablespoons of granulated sugar

1. Preheat your oven to 325°F (163°C). Place four 6-ounce ramekins in a small roasting pan or a baking dish with sides higher than your ramekins.
2. Cut the vanilla bean in half and scrape out the seeds with a knife. Pour the heavy cream into a medium saucepan and add in the vanilla seeds and the bean pod. Heat the cream and occasionally stir to prevent a skin from forming on the top. When the cream starts to bubble and boil, remove it from the heat and turn off your stove. Let it cool and steep for 10 minutes.
3. In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks, 1/2 cup of granulated sugar, and salt together. The mixture should turn a shade lighter in colour and be well combined.
4. Pour a third of the heavy cream into the egg yolk mixture while whisking (the cookbook says not to, and to stir instead, I'll leave this up to you). Continue to add the heavy cream until it is all combined.
5. Place a fine-mesh sieve over a ramekin and carefully pour in the mixture, reaching just below the top. Repeat with the other three ramekins.
6. Take the small roasting pan with the filled ramekins to your oven and set it on the oven rack. Gently pour hot water into the roasting pan - be careful not to get any into the ramekins! The water should reach about halfway up the sides of the ramekins.
7. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until the custard is set, it'll still be wobbly in the middle. Remove the ramekins from the roasting pan filled with water. Set it aside to cool in room temperature. Then cover and refrigerate overnight (or at least 4 hours). When your oven has cooled, carefully take out the roasting pan and pour the water out.
8. Remove the ramekins 15 minutes before serving. Divide the 3 tablespoons of sugar (you can also try it with dark brown sugar as the cookbook recommends) evenly between the four ramekins and sprinkle it on top. Use a kitchen torch to caramelize the sugar to create a smooth top.

For some reason, my kitchen torch refused to work for me that day. Despite many attempts in refueling it, I don't think any of the butane fuel made it in (yikes). I ended up using a lighter. I do not recommend this. I should have waited for Howard to do it, but I was impatient.

Boy was this crème brûlée smooth! Even smoother than the recipe I tried here. Let's stick to this one from now on!

Baked with Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito

During the last week of October, I found out that Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito (from Baked) were coming to Toronto for their book tour! Whoopie! I was pretty ecstatic because it was a close enough location (Yorkdale Shopping Centre) for us to get to, but I was a little sad that it started at 5:00pm on Thursday. At that time... I would be just leaving from work... downtown!

Now, because I have the best partner in the world, Howard agreed to go at 5:00pm and fill me in on what I missed as I took the subway to get to Williams-Sonoma as soon as possible. He snapped photos for me, took notes during their demonstration, and lined-up to have my two cookbooks signed. Sigh, he's a keeper! Here, he'll fill you in on the event:

Howard: I got there a little before 5pm and they were in the middle of being interviewed. Not too long after I showed up, a small crowd began to gather with their new book (Baked Explorations) in hand. At about a quarter after five Matt and Renato started their demonstration on how to make their famous sweet and salty brownies - the old school way - the same way they still do in their bakeries.

As they started baking, they chatted briefly about how they became known nationwide via Oprah's "O List" in an issue of the O Magazine. Hearing their funny take on how it all began for them was a lot more interesting than just knowing they were featured in the O Magazine.

Fun fact: Matt doesn't like brownie corners while Renato likes them.

During the Q&A, someone asked about their experience on Throwdown with Bobby Flay where they battled for the best peanut butter banana cream pie. Consensus say they were robbed and Bobby Flay look out, they want a rematch.

It was clear to see that both Matt and Renato love what they do. Their friendly and humorous nature made them easy to like and I must say it helped make this event into one of the better promotional experiences I've attended. I had a good time. It was nice meeting you guys.

Good news: Williams-Sonoma will soon be carrying their brownie mix.

Oh and here are the samples of their famous sweet and salty brownies (above). I wanted to take more than one, but I decided I should behave. Sylvia arrived around 6pm and didn't miss out on meeting them (or the samples). Back over to Sylvia...

Sylvia: I gave Howard a call once I was off the subway and he told me to run. Hmph! They weren't even leaving yet! They were signing extra books for the store and chatting with a few people there. I spotted someone wearing their Baked hoodie too (dedicated fan!).

Well, I went up to finally meet them and they are two seriously nice and funny guys. Of course we're gushing about them and they're asking us about our blog and what camera we were using (showed them our trusty point-and-shoot - disbelief ensued). We talked about visiting Baked during our trip to New York in the summer and really, we can't wait to visit them again some day.

Other people came up to have their books signed, so we backed off and I found brownie samples left! Yum!

I usually never do this, but I became a dork and had my photo taken with them (thanks for being an awesome cameraman Howard). So many thanks again to Matt and Renato for visiting Toronto for their book tour and we hope to see you again!

My signed copies of Baked: New Frontiers in Baking and Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented. Thanks guys! =)