This week’s Cook the Book Fridays recipe from David Lebovitz’ My Paris Kitchen is a twist on a French classic – a coffee flavoured crème brûlée.
I was interested in making thes,e particularly because some of the desserts I worked hardest on developing for my own book (and stressed the most about!) were custard-type desserts. Essentially, it’s a coffee flavoured custard that’s cooked gently in shallow ramekins placed in a water bath (so they don’t cook too quickly), cooled then chilled then topped with sugar that you caramelize with a blow torch (or under a broiler). Sounds simply and really, it is.
David’s recipe calls for the crèmes to be cooked for 20-25 minutes at 300˚F, which sounded like it was on the shorter side of the correct cooking time (I wasn’t sure what the coffee flavouring might affect the custard so I reserved my judgement and I felt that at least these were cooking at the right temperature, unlike Dorie’s version that I had so much trouble with a few years ago, cooking at a full 100˚F less than David’s). David says
When you jiggle the pan, they should just barely quiver.
Get the recipe for David Lebovitz’s Coffee Crème Brûlée here (where noone had an issue with the timing/ custard setting!) or on p 253 of My Paris Kitchen.
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They look great! I need to get more céme brulee dishes to try this again with vanilla flavor.
Vanilla is still my favourite!
I followed my instinct and read the recipe loosely. Somehow I escaped the pitfall of not properly setting the custard. Extra egg yolks help. Love those dark caramelized spots on the custard.
Interesting, I mean, my instinct was to change the custard too bu adding and extra yolk and maybe to cook it over the stove slightly before I baked but with projects like this, I tend to follow the recipe to a “T” 😉
I forgot to put in the coffee liquor now that you mention it. I am sure that was why I wold have wanted a different instant coffee. But then, it was Folger’s so…
As always yours looks amazing!
I think a lot depended on what sort of instant coffee people used!
Yours look great! and yes, I need to get me some proper creme brulee dishes too!
It does make a difference!
Yours do look perfect and the color is lovely. I’m not sure why mine looked so dark after seeing everyone else photo.
It seems like a few of us had some issues with this one!
Beautiful (as always), Mardi! I still don’t know why mine worked out and I definitely remember having trouble with Dorie’s version, which is why I marveled at my success with this recipe. Still have no idea. And I agree that the flavor was awesome!
Sometimes things just work out!
The only way I convinced Howard to eat these was to compare them to coffee ice cream, though these were silkier. Yours look great, even if they didn’t come out exactly the way you wanted. Mine were thicker, so I thought that was why I had to cook mine so long, but it seems like most of us had issues.
Sounds like it which is a shame…