Crème brûlée

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Crème brûlée (; French pronunciation: [k??m b?y.le]), also known as burnt cream, crema catalana, or Trinity cream is a dessert consisting of a rich custard base topped with a contrasting layer of hard caramel. It is normally served at room temperature. The custard base is traditionally flavored with vanilla, but can have a variety of other flavorings.

Video Crème brûlée

History

The earliest known recipes for crème brûlée appear in the Catalan cookbooks Llibre de Sent Soví (14th century) and Llibre del Coch (16th century). The recipe included a custard cream, over which sugar was poured and subsequently burnt with a hot iron rod, creating the characteristic burnt crust. Analogous recipes appear in 17th century Spanish cookery books, usually under the name of Cream of Saint Joseph, since it was a traditional dessert served during Saint Joseph's day. The recipe was referred to as crema catalana (catalan cream) for the first time by the Spanish friar Juan de Altamiras in his 1745 cookbook, where the recipe was said to be of Catalan origin..

The current, French, name, crème brûlée (burnt cream) first appears in François Massialot's 1691 cookbook Cuisinier royal et bourgeois. The name "burnt cream" was used in the 1702 English translation. Confusingly, in 1740 Massialot referred to a similar recipe as crême à l'Angloise; 'English cream'.

The dish then vanished from French cookbooks until the 1980s. A version of crème brûlée (known locally as Trinity Cream or Cambridge burnt cream) was introduced at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1879 with the college arms impressed on top of the cream with a branding iron'.

Crème brûlée was not very common in French and English cookbooks of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but it became extremely popular in the 1980s, "a symbol of that decade's self-indulgence and the darling of the restaurant boom", probably popularized by Sirio Maccioni at his New York restaurant Le Cirque, who claimed he made it "the most famous and by far the most popular dessert in restaurants from Paris to Peoria".

Maps Crème brûlée

Ingredients

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Crema catalana

In Catalan cuisine, crema catalana ("Catalan cream") or crema cremada ("Burnt cream"), is a dish "virtually identical" to crème brûlée; Traditionally known as crema de Sant Josep, it was originally served on Saint Joseph's Day although nowadays it is consumed at all times of the year. The custard is flavored with lemon or orange zest, and cinnamon. The burnt sugar topping is documented in 1770.

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Technique

Crème brûlée is usually served in individual ramekins. Discs of caramel may be prepared separately and put on top just before serving, or the caramel may be formed directly on top of the custard, immediately before serving. To do this, sugar is sprinkled onto the custard, then caramelized under a salamander broiler or with a butane torch.

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See also

• Crème caramel or flan, a dessert consisting of a rich custard base topped with a layer of soft caramel
• Custard tart
• Egg tart
• Flan
• List of custard desserts
• List of French desserts
• Pudding

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References

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Bibliography

• "Origin of Crème Brûlée", Petits Propos Culinaires 31:61 (March 1989).

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External links

• The dictionary definition of crème brûlée at Wiktionary

Source of the article : Wikipedia