Caramel Crème Renversée by Philippe Conticini

Last week, Philippe Conticini was doing an Instagram live during which he made the recipe for the famous caramel crème renversée. It’s a recipe I saved without a second thought. You should know that I’m a real fan of vanilla egg custard and until just a few days ago, I thought that egg custard / œufs au lait / caramel crème renversée were all the same thing. Well, I can tell you after having tasted both that it’s really different (and I must admit I have a preference for crème caramel).

How do I get my custard right?

It’s a very easy recipe to make, which doesn’t require many ingredients: eggs, sugar, milk and vanilla. As is the case every time a recipe calls for few ingredients (and basic ingredients), I advise you to use quality products, fresh eggs, whole milk and a nice vanilla pod rather than vanilla flavouring (they are, by the way, 2 very different things). The end result will only be better for it.

In this recipe, the chef whisks the eggs with the sugar for a long time, which gives a very airy, very frothy mixture (that’s a first difference from my œufs au lait recipe). Once the milk is incorporated, the mixture stays frothy. That’s why the chef advises waiting about ten minutes for the air bubbles to settle and even then, skimming a little. Personally, I filled the ramekins to the brim, but as there was still a bit of froth, the custards sank a little after baking. It’s a detail to take into consideration depending on the result you want to achieve (for example, the chef deliberately baked custards that weren’t very thick, whereas I wanted them to be a bit taller).

How is it baked?

This is the second difference I noticed between this caramel crème renversée recipe and my œufs au lait recipe. Here, it’s baked in a bain-marie, at a low temperature (140°C). The custard bakes gently for an hour and you get custards that are still a little wobbly. Don’t panic, they’ll be perfect after chilling.

For baking, the chef gives 2 tips: the first is to put 2 sheets of baking paper on the tray that will hold the ramekins so as not to burn the caramel (I tested with and without and didn’t see any difference :P). The second tip is to cover the ramekins with a sheet of aluminium foil to avoid getting yellowish patches on top of the custard (due to the presence of the eggs).

How do I unmould the custards?

To enjoy these delicious caramel crèmes renversées, the chef finally advises waiting until the next day. In the recipe, I say 6 hours, which seems sufficient to me since I tested unmoulding a custard after 1 hour of resting and it was already perfect (it held very well).

So once the custards have set, you just need to run a small knife all the way around the custard and use a small plate to turn the custard over. If it doesn’t come down straight away, just give it a few little shakes, it will eventually let go 😛