Creme Caramel Recipe

Hello, this is Chef John from foodwishes.com with creme caramel.

That's right! You can call it "flan" if you want, they're both French words

but "creme caramel" sounds kind of fancy and "flan" kind of sounds like... well... you know.

So I'm gonna go with creme caramel here.

But no matter what you call it, the fact remains, this is one of the world's greatest desserts.

And, I'm happy to report, one of the world's easiest desserts.

In fact, the only slightly tricky part would be this first step

where we have to do the caramel part of the creme caramel.

And the first part of that step would be to spray your ramekins, heat proof, of course,

with just a little bit of nonstick vegetable spray.

You can see those are placed in a casserole dish,

which is what we're gonna bake them in.

So give those a spray and set those aside.

And then it's time to make what's called a dry caramel.

And it's called that because the only ingredient is sugar.

You're gonna put that in a small dry heavy bottom saute pan.

You're gonna place it over medium heat.

And you're gonna stand there and not much is gonna happen for the first few minutes.

But then you'll see this little ring around the outside,

where the sugar will start to melt and then more of it will melt and it will start to darken.

And when that starts to happen it's very important to keep the pan moving.

Alright, gently shake it back and forth, swirl it around until all that white sugar melts.

And there will be wisps of smoke. Don't get nervous!

That's not a problem. We wanna get this nice and dark.

And it's not gonna burn unless you stop moving it, okay, so just keep swirling.

Alright, don't put any utensils in this.

Do not under any circumstances put your fingertips in this to taste it.

Unless, of course, you're some kind of criminal and you'd like to not have fingerprints anymore, then I guess you can.

And when all the sugar's melted and it looks like that, turn off the heat. You are done!

Congratulations, you just made the most terrifying form of caramel known to man.

Alright, but don't get cocky, we have one step left.

You're gonna quickly carefully take this over to your ramekins

and distribute it equally into the bottom of each.

And because it's so hot it's gonna spread out nice and evenly.

So those are all set and ready for the creme part of the creme caramel.

Which is nothing more than a simple custard.

And by simple, I mean it only took me literally 30 years to figure out the exact perfect formula.

Although in fairness, I was doing other stuff.

But anyway, my formula includes one whole egg plus three yolks.

We're also gonna add a pinch of salt and some white granulated sugar.

And you can just dump all the sugar in.

But you know what, how often do you get to see sugar being sprinkled over egg yolks?

Not that often! So I wanted to savor that.

At that point we're gonna take a whisk and we're gonna pop those yolks, which feels strangely satisfying.

And then we're gonna mix that up until the sugar is dissolved.

And we don't have to go too long here, we're just gonna mix that for about a minute

until we can't feel any of that grainy sugar in the bowl.

It might get a little frothy, the color will turn kind of a pale yellow, it's gonna look just like that.

And at that point, we're gonna add the rest of the ingredients.

First of which being my secret ingredient: creme fraiche.

And as far as alternatives to that, I will talk about that on the blog post.

But if you do want it to be the most awesome creme caramel in the world, you will use that.

We're also gonna add some whole milk,

a nice big splash of vanilla

and then a little splash of another secret ingredient:

a little orange cognac - also known as grand marnier.

You may of course remember that from our world famous souffle video.

So a little bit of that, and you're gonna take your whisk

and you're gonna mix that until completely incorporated to completely smooth.

And that is ready to ladle into our prepared ramekins.

We're not gonna fill them all the way up.

So we're gonna go about 2/3 to 75% of the way.

Try to portion as even as possible.

Once those are filled, we're gonna take some hot tap water

and you're gonna fill your casserole dish halfway up.

And that's gonna help the heat transfer more slowly and more evenly throughout the cooking process.

You're gonna go ahead and place that in the middle of a preheated 325 degree oven

for about 45 to 50 minutes

or until just barely set.

And I usually start checking around 40 minutes, around 42 minutes, something like that.

This is not a recipe you're gonna screw up by peeking and checking.

So i'll open the oven, i'll give the pan a little shake to see what's happening.

And if you see this slow motion shot here, you see how the center is still a little liquefied.

There's like a ripple under the surface.

You can tell it's not set, that needs a couple more minutes.

Alright, so mine went like 46 minutes.

And you can see here if I give it a little shake with the tongs,

Alright, there's still a little jiggle but that liquified wiggle in the middle is no longer visible.

Okay, so that's perfect.

At that point we're gonna remove them from the pan onto a rack to cool a little bit.

These are traditionally served cold.

And before unmolding you want to go around with a knife, make sure it's not attached around that edge.

And once you've gone around, you can see that moving,

you're gonna invert it onto a plate

and then feast your eyes on one of the greatest sights in the history of the culinary arts.

Ladies and gentlemen, the creme caramel!

Oh my God.

I'm not sure if I can finish this video, it takes my breath away.

Now you do get a little more caramel if you unmold them warm.

so what I like to do is unmold them and then chill them.

So I do like to serve these cold. But again, up to you!

You are the Melle Mel of your creme caramel.

And right here, as I go in with a spoon,

you can see that just unbelievably smooth, silky texture.

Just enough egg to keep it together.

Just impossibly creamy.

That little bit of tang from the creme fraiche does magical things that are just beyond my vocabulary.

i mean look at that!

So you can enjoy these just like that, absolutely spectacular.

Or if you want to get super fancy, you can do this.

In the bottom of the ramekin, there'll be a couple teaspoons of caramel that don't come out.

You can pop that in the microwave for about a half a minute until it liquefies again.

And then if you drizzle it on a silpat you can make designs.

Right here, I started, I was gonna make some rabbit ears.

And I thought to myself: "well, that's stupid".

So I changed my mind and started doing this random squiggly thing.

And it's so cool is that temperature of the sugar comes down,

you actually can pull it into these really long strands.

Kind of fun. Again, be careful, very hot, very dangerous.

And once it cools you can peel it off,

place it on your creme caramel and proceed to blow minds.

People will be like "I had no idea you were a world-class pastry chef but now I know".

Anyway, I really do hope you give this a try.

This thing is such a crowd pleaser and as you saw, fairly simple to make.

So head over to foodwishes.com for more information and the ingredient amounts as usual

and as always, enjoy!