Creme Caramel

Hubby and I have a shameful secret.  We've become addicted to My Kitchen Rules, and the pop up restaurants each pair of contestants have been creating.  On Thursday night I asked Hubby what WE would do, if we were contestants.  Thus began a very long conversation between the two of us, covering dishes from goulash, to pasta, to steak tartare and many things inbetween.  In the end, Hubby decided that he would want to do three courses of steak tartare for entree, duck confit for main with dauphinoise potatoes and creme caramel for dessert.

The next morning, Hubby remembered that my Sis was going to spend Saturday night with us, and suggested we actually undertake the menu, just for kicks.

So we did.

 
I left Hubby to deal with the steak.  And because Sis and I were at a Matisse exhibit all day, he ended up tackling the duck too, although he changed tack from dauphinoise potatoes and roasted them in duck fat as well.... a change we highly commended.  And he couldn't get hold of a whole duck, so he ended up with four duck breasts instead.

But when we got home, tired, weary, and with some ciders to share, Sis and I hit the kitchen for some creme caramel assembly.  We used a recipe from Francoise Bernard's 'La Cuisine: Every Day French Cooking', which Hubby had given me on our first wedding anniversary.

First off, we tackled our caramel - something Sis and I had never tried before.  But it seemed straight-forward enough - add sugar to water, and simmer in a saucepan until all the sugar is dissolved and it goes a medium amber colour.

At the same time, we started making a custard (also something neither Sis and I had tried before - Hubby always tackles that).  We heated 100g of caster sugar and a tablespoon of vanilla sugar in 500ml of milk until it came to a bare simmer (it had JUST started to simmer). 

 Then it was a case of carefully pouring the hot milk mixture into a bowl with three lightly beaten eggs.  While pouring, you have to whisk the eggs like mad, to stop the hot milk curdling them.  The end result is a light, frothy, vanilla custard.  Perfect.

That sat in it's jug for a few more minutes while we waited for the caramel to finish, then I carefully poured caramel into the bottom of four ramekins, and swirled it around to cover the whole thing.

Once the caramel was in, we filled the ramekins up with the custard mixture, then popped it in the oven for 35 minutes.  

 They came out and cooled down on the bench for a few minutes before being popped into the fridge to cool down until the end of our extravagant meal (I couldn't help myself - here are the piccies of Hubby's entree and main).

 When we got to dessert, the ramekins came out of the fridge and Hubby pondered dubiously over how we would actually get the creme caramels out of the ramekins without making a mess. 

 I smiled at him, ran a knife around the inside of the first ramekin, put a plate over the top and quickly turned it over.  A few sharp taps on the bottom of the ramekin as I lifted it away and VOILA!!  Creme caramel success!

The texture and flavour of the custard was perfect - it had set just the way it's supposed to.  The caramel was definitely overcooked - it had a burnt caramel flavour that wasn't unpleasant, but was definitely a beginners error.  All three of us were astounded at how well it all worked.  La Cuisine really IS every day cooking.