It’s an enduring favourite dessert at restaurants, but crème brûlée is also surprisingly simple to make at home. This July – with National Crème Brûlée Day falling on the 22nd – take the opportunity to follow the Coffee Crème Brûlée recipe created for us by Michelin-star chef and friend of Difference Coffee, Asimakis Chaniotis.
Two key ingredients make Chaniotis’ Coffee Crème Brûlée recipe stand out as a special, gourmet treat. There’s the dash of Difference Coffee that perfectly complements the rich, creamy notes of the classic dessert. More unexpected is an infusion of fresh rosemary, lending just a hint of its woody herbaceous flavour as a subtle yet highly effective accent.
The signature sugary topping, seared to a crackling caramel with a blow torch, is the essential finishing touch to this Crème Brûlée. If you don’t own a blow torch, achieve the same effect by searing the sugar under a hot grill.
INGREDIENTS
500g double cream
1/2 vanilla pod split in half
1 small brunch of rosemary
6 free range egg yolks
100g caster sugar
40g light brown sugar
1 Nespresso compatible capsule of your favourite Difference Coffee
METHOD
Bring the cream and rosemary to the boil and when that happens, take off the heat add the vanilla whisk vigorously and pass through a fine sieve.
Make sure you squeeze all the excess before discard and add the coffee.
Whisk both sugar and the yolks with an electric whisk or manually until they are pale yellow and add ladle by ladle the warm cream mixture and then mix everything with a plastic spatula and pass through a sieve again using a funnel.
Fill up your ramekins and place them in an oven tray and place a tin foil on top of them and pour boiling water in the tray to create a bain marie.
Cook the crème brûlée in the oven with no fan at 92 degrees Celsius for around 1.5 hour (it might take up to 2 hours).
Open the oven, take the tin foil and try to shake them gently. When they look a little bit set take them off the water and allow them to cool down in a cold place in your house before you place them in the fridge.
When you want to consume them, sprinkle the top of the brûlée with a bit of light brown sugar and burn them gently with a blow torch. Enjoy.
