Crème brûlée is a fantastic little dessert. A sweet, custardy interior is paired with the ever so slightly burnt top to give it a nice crunch. Its flavors pair well with some mint and tart berries. The base also leaves plenty of room to play with the dessert's flavors. That's exactly what today's recipe is: a tea infused crème brûlée. For this, you'll want a strong, black tea. I recommend using a good Irish Breakfast tea.
To get a good burn on the top, you could spend $25 at a local kitchen shop for a small blow torch, or just get an actual one for the same price at your local Home Depot or Lowes. I recommend the latter as it's much more powerful and can give a much faster burn.
Ingredients
- 4 cups chilled heavy cream
- 2/3 cup granulated sugar
- a pinch of salt
- 10 bags black tea, strings tied together
- 12 large egg yolks
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 8-12 teaspoons Sugar in the Raw (or Turbinado sugar)
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Combine 2 cups cream, sugar, and salt in a medium saucepan. Add tea bags and bring the mixture to boil over medium heat. Stir a few times while heating to make sure the sugar is dissolving. Once it's boiled, remove the pan from the heat and let it steep for 15 minutes.
While the concoction is steeping, lay out a baking dish or roasting pan. Place a kitchen towel at the bottom and arrange shallow, fluted dishes, or ramekins, on the towel (this should make about eight). Start water boiling in a kettle.
Now that the cream has finished steeping, remove them and squeeze them to extract as much moisture as you can back into the cream mixture. Stir the liquid and add 2 more cups of cream to cool it down.
In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks and vanilla extract until it's all combined. Add about 1 cup o the cream mixture into the yolks until well combined. Repeat cup by cup until all of the cream is finished. Everything should be evenly colored and combined. Strain it through a fine-mesh strainer into a clean container like a 2-quart measuring cup or a medium bowl. Discard any solids left in the strainer, then ladle the smooth mixture into the 8 dishes laid out earlier, dividing evenly.
Place the baking dish into the oven rack set at about lower-middle position. Pour the boiling water into the dish without splashing any into the cream mixtures. The water should only reach 2/3 the height of the dishes. Bake until the centers of the custards have just barely set and aren't sloshy. Using an instant-read thermometer should register 170-174 degrees. This should take about 25-30 minutes, but a bit longer if you used ramekins. Check the temperatures early so you don't risk over-cooking.
Remove everything from the oven when done, and transfer the custard dishers to a wire rack to cool for about two hours at room temperature. Once cooled at room temperature, cover the dishes with splastic wrap and refrigerate at least four hours, or up to 4 days.
Before serving, uncover the dishes, sprinkle each with turbinado sugar. Make sure to give even coverage, then use a torch to quickly carmalize the sugar. Refrigerate again to chill, and serve again in 30 minutes, but no later than 45 minutes.
Enjoy!
143aSo, is a sugar glider a good pet for you? That is a qoisteun you certainly need to ask yourself. This article is targeted at disuading you from owning a sugar glider by simply presenting the facts. Ask any suggie owner and they will tell you these things from experience and the huge number of pets given up to rescues and adoption is testament that this is true. DietSugar gliders require a Captive Diet that is not simply bought like a dog or cat. They cannot survive on dry and/or pellet type foods. Sugar gliders are an exotic wild animal and they require an exotic diet that can get complicated. If you are squeamish around mealworms, [[grubs]], [[crickets]] and other bugs, you should not own a sugar glider. HousingSugar gliders live in treetops and run and glide large distances every night to feed. Their cage requirements are far beyond what would be needed for a comparable sized domesticated pet such as a hamster, gerbil, ferret, or small birds. A typical healthy cage is no less than an AVIARY. Australia's Department of Sustainability and Environment has various laws regarding keeping animals. The minimum cage size they require is much larger than what is easily found for sale in other countries, is not enough room and therefore not a healthy situation for the animals. The Exel Tower Cage is a popular and acceptable cage for American sugar gliders. SmellSugar gliders are very scent-driven and can be smelly animals. Much like a ferret or skunk, they have glands on their bodies to emit scent and to mark, although they don't smell as strongly as skunks or ferrets. They also mark constantly with their urine as they are active inside and outside of the cage. After a few days, any cage situation will get messy and smelly and will need attention. VerbalizationsSugar gliders are noisy, and worse, they are noisy all night long. Being a NocturnalAnimal, they are awake when you are sleeping and they are sleeping when you are awake. Not only is it hard that you miss most of their awake time, but their barking and crabbing and hissing and various cage noises, including clanks, bangs and constant exercise wheel's running, can keep you up at night and will ruin your day. Here's a video on what to expect. MessySugar gliders are indeed very messy animals. When they wake, they will extricate their bowels as they move around. It is common for an animal to extricate while it is eating and when out for play and running on you. Poo and pee on your clothes, skin, hair, and furniture is to be expected with these animals. While in the cage, gliders spend a lot of time on the walls or high up and thusly they will pee, poo and even throw food and waste outside of the cage. ReproductionSugar gliders in captivity have the capability to breed constantly. It is common to have a litter of 1 to 3 joeys up to 3 even 4 times a year. This is a strain on the female and certainly becomes a problem for the keeper when there are too many animals to care for and when a male is in the cage with multiple females, breeding more. Overpopulation has become a very big issue with many unwanted sugar gliders living in bad conditions. BitingSugar gliders are an exotic wild animal and therefore have instincts to protect. If you look around the forums you will see that many people have problems with biters and many of them give up and hand the animals over to rescues thus adding to the number of homeless animals. Some people have needed to get stitches because of how deep a sugar glider can bite. In the wild they normally peel bark off of trees, human skin is much softer and easier for them to bite into. LongevityIn captivity, sugar gliders can live up to 15 years, plus or minus some. Considering the amount of effort one has to put into the pet for feeding, playtime, cage space in the house, pet sitting while away, a majority of sugar glider owners are not prepared for the long haul and inevitably give up their pets for adoption. CompanionshipSugar gliders are a social animal and were not meant to be alone. Human contact is absolutely not a replacement for family of their own kind. A minimum number of animals is two, do not ever plan to have just one. Solitary animals are the ones who largely have health issues, self mutilate or bite due to depression. There is no replacement for sleeping with and interfacing with their own kind. HealthSugar glider health problems can be bizarre as well as emotionally and financially draining. Search the SugarGliderForums and you will see numerous issues. Finding veterinarians in your area can be difficult, as most vets have little to no experience with sugar gliders. AbandonA large percentage of sugar glider owners give them up within a year. They finally realize and accept that keeping the animal is not as rewarding as they had hoped for. All exotic animals require above and beyond any care that might be given for a standard domestic animal and most f
Posted by: Bundis | 09/13/2012 at 08:17 PM