With bonfire night just around the corner, here are a couple of recipes to move the fireworks into the kitchen. Using a cook’s blowtorch is daunting stuff, and even though I’ve grown brave enough to use my mini blowtorch, I still wince at the rasp of that knife-like jet of blue flame, holding it at a nervous arm’s length. If you can hold your nerve though, you can master maybe the only dessert where the making itself is as showstopping as the tasting: melt, bubble, burnish and burn the thick sugar crust of a creme brulee.
Honey mascarpone creme brulee with forest fruits
I’ve used mascarpone here instead of the usual cream, perhaps making creme brulee a bit of a misnomer. The cheese, while every bit as rich as cream, has a very mild tang to it, which I think sits well with the sweetness of the honey.
Serves 6
250ml wholemilk
250g mascarpone
6 large egg yolks
6 tbsp runny honey
3 tbsp plain flour
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 tbsp demerara sugar
250g forest fruits, fresh or frozen
1 Preheat the oven to 150C/300F/gas mark 2. Put a kettle on to boil.
2 Gently heat the milk until it’s scalding hot. Meanwhile, beat the mascarpone until it’s perfectly lump-free, add the egg yolks and whisk until smooth. Add the honey, flour and vanilla extract and stir to combine. Pour in the hot milk in a thin stream, whisking all the while.
3 Divide the custard between 6 ovenproof ramekins and arrange them in a large oven dish or roasting tin. Pour boiling water into the oven dish until the water reaches around ⅔ of the way up the sides of the ramekins.
4 Bake for 35-40 minutes, until the custard has just about set, is firm around the outside and with barely a jiggle at the centre. Leave to cool to room temperature, then put them in the fridge to chill and set completely.
5 Once the custard has cooled, sprinkle a couple of teaspoons of demerara sugar in a thick, even layer over the top of each ramekin. Use a blowtorch to blast them, moving the flame lightly over the sugar until it’s bubbling and caramelised all over. You’ll get the best flavour if you cook the sugar until it’s a rich amber colour all over, with very dark, almost black, patches in parts. It’s a fine balance to strike, though, because cook it for even a few seconds too long and the sugar will begin to smoke and burn. If you don’t have a blowtorch, put the sugar-topped custards under a preheated grill for 3-5 minutes, checking them regularly.
6 Chill again in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before serving, particularly if you used the grill to caramelise their tops, as the heat will have loosened the consistency of the custard.
7 Meanwhile, heat the forest fruits in a saucepan until softened and beginning to release their juices, sweetening with a little sugar if you need to. Serve the creme brulees with the hot fruit.
Raspberry creme brulee
There’s a layer of raspberry compote nestled underneath the rich vanilla custard in these puddings, balancing all of that cream and sugar with something a little fresher. I love burrowing down – first through the sugar crust and then the thick cream – to reach that shock of pink at the bottom of the dish.
You can use raspberry jam at a push if you can’t be bothered to make this easy compote, but it’ll be far sweeter and could push the creme brulee into decidedly sickly territory. Another option would be to use a couple of teaspoons of tart lemon curd, a few frozen blackcurrants (plucked from a bag of mixed frozen berries) or even just a couple of fresh raspberries, as they are.
Serves 4
125g fresh raspberries
3 tbsp caster sugar
1 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp cornflour
200ml double cream
100ml milk
4 egg yolks
50g caster sugar
2 tsp vanilla bean paste
4 tbsp caster sugar
1 Preheat the oven to 150C/300F/gas mark 2.
2 Combine the raspberries, caster sugar and lemon juice in a small pan and set over a low heat. Cook for a few minutes, crushing the berries under a spoon, until the fruit is tender and the mixture soupy. Press the raspberry mixture through a sieve to catch all the seeds, pushing through as much pulp as possible, then decant the strained mixture back into the pan. Whisk in the cornflour and cook, stirring continuously, for another couple of minutes, until the puree has become a little thicker. Divide between four ramekins and put them in the fridge to cool and set.
3 Meanwhile, prepare the custard. Heat the cream and milk together over a low heat. Whisk the egg yolks, sugar and vanilla bean paste together in a large bowl. Once the cream mixture is scalding hot, pour it into the egg yolks in a thin stream while you whisk.
4 Pour the custard over the chilled raspberry puree in the four ramekins and transfer them to an oven tray or roasting dish. Pour near-boiling water to ⅔ of the way up the outside of the ramekins. Bake the custards for around 35 minutes, until set to a very slight wobble at their centres.
5 Once cooked, remove the ramekins from the water bath and leave to cool to room temperature before moving to the fridge to chill.
6 Once the custards are cold, get a mini blowtorch ready, or preheat the grill. Dredge caster sugar over the desserts and caramelise the tops as instructed in the honey mascarpone creme brulee recipe above. Return to the fridge for 30 minutes before eating.
