food

How To Make A Jiggly Crème Caramel

Food stylist Saskia is back and she's showing us how to make the ultimate crème caramel - a custard dessert with a layer of delicious caramel sauce. This is guaranteed to be your new dinner party favourite.

food

How To Make A Jiggly Crème Caramel

Food stylist Saskia is back and she's showing us how to make the ultimate crème caramel - a custard dessert with a layer of delicious caramel sauce. This is guaranteed to be your new dinner party favourite.

Supplies

Caramel

  • 125 g caster sugar
  • 4 tablespoons water (room temperature)

Custard

  • 500 ml whole milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or seeds scraped from 1 vanilla bean pod
  • 4 eggs
  • 60 g caster sugar

Steps

Caramel

  1. Preheat the oven to 150°C.
  2. Preheat a high sided saucepan. Add the caster sugar a tablespoon at a time until the sugar melts, then take it to a deep golden brown caramel. Add the water, stir quickly, then allow to bubble up for a few minutes until it reaches 110*C (thread stage).
  3. Quickly remove from the heat and divide between your 6 dariole moulds. Set in the fridge while you make the custard (otherwise it will mix with the custard!).

Custard

  1. Add the milk and vanilla bean paste to a saucepan and heat until steaming, but do not let it boil.
  2. In a large heatproof bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar. Pour the steaming milk over slowly, tempering the eggs and whisking constantly until fully combined - but take care not to be too vigorous as too many air bubbles will make the custard less smooth.
  3. Allow the custard to rest for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes if lots of foam is still on top, scrape it off with a spoon or alternatively, when you divide the custard between the moulds, quickly flash a blow torch on top to remove any residual bubbles. Cover each mould with foil tightly.
  4. Place the dariole moulds in a deep oven proof tray with a tea towel laid on the base (this helps them to not slip around!). Pop the tray on the bottom shelf of the oven, and then when it is on the shelf, pour in the boiling water (this makes it less inevitable that you’ll spill water on the way to the oven) until it’s halfway up each dariole mould.
  5. Bake for 35 minutes, removing the foil after the first 20 minutes. The custards are cooked when they seem firm on top but still have a wobble to them when jiggled - this shouldn’t appear to be a really liquid jiggle, more like jelly.
  6. Allow to cool on a wire rack, then refrigerate overnight before using a small sharp knife to go around each creme caramel, then dunk in boiling water and turn out onto a plate.