Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Short but Sweet. And... Well, Soupy (TWD)

One hour to go before this becomes Wednesday with Dorie, so here goes.

This week's Tuesdays With Dorie assignment was creme brulee -- one of my all-time favorites. Only I've never tried to make it without a water bath before, so when Dorie's recipe said to just put it on a baking sheet, I was skeptical.

TOO skeptical.

I put it in a water bath anyway, and wondered how it would be different.

The difference is -- in a water bath, it takes a hell of a lot longer.

So after doubling the cooking time, increasing the temperature from 200 degrees to 300 degrees and cooking it another twenty minutes (until it was actually BUBBLING), I took it out and stuck it in the refrigerator.

The next evening, we took them out and brulee'd.

We cracked through the brulee (one of my favorite sounds EVER) and discovered that even after 100 freaking minutes in the oven, the custard had not set.

And it really didn't taste that great. In spite of the addition of cardamom (see, I TOLD you I was going to use it in everything from here on out) and orange zest.

I learned my lesson. Trust Dorie. (But I still wonder if the 200 degree cooking temperature was a typo.)

7 comments:

Mari said...

This recipe was a bit of a puzzler, but pretty much everyone who baked this crème brûlée without the water bath at 200 degrees, had to bake it for well over 90 minutes. Too bad you didn't like the flavor.

MacDuff said...

Yeah, I had to bake mine forever. And no, it didn't set, which didn't really bother me because I was bored of it by that point anyways.

I saw an orange and cardamon chocolate at our food co-op and thought of you guys!!!

Anonymous said...

This was such a weird recipe. Mine set after an hour, but not like with other CB recipes. More like a pudding.

Engineer Baker said...

Too weird. I wish it had set up, because cardamom creme brulee sounds fantastic. Sometimes I trust Dorie and it bites me in the a$$ though, so you never know.

Nancy/n.o.e said...

Yep, mine did eventually set, but I lost track of the time! I almost made the cardamom variation, but in the end chose tea. It was yummy.

I've been coming across so many cardamom recipes, it's weird. Dorie has some other ones in her book - eg, on page 38-39 of Dorie's book - Cardamom Crumb Cake, which has cardamom in the cake and in the crumb topping. You can use almost 2 tsp. in one recipe!

Nancy

Jessica Eiden Smedley said...

Mine didn't set so well, either. But, you gotta love using that torch.

I left you an award!

Gina said...

I was just wondering....do you need anyone to eat this stuff?

I mean all these cooking with classes means you're making incredible stuff and if grouchy hub (or puppy) is not up to the task let me know.....


gk