For those who know me a little, I’m a big fan of crème brûlée. It’s a simple and irresistible dessert, isn’t it? But for a while I’d been wanting to try crema catalana, which is very similar to it, with one difference: crema catalana doesn’t go in the oven. It’s cooked in a saucepan like a pastry cream.
For this recipe, I took my inspiration from the blogs “Il était une fois la pâtisserie” and “Du sacré au sucré“. You can caramelise the top of the cream (or not). Personally, I prefer vanilla crème brûlée, my guilty pleasure. But my other half really liked these new flavours (lemon, orange, star anise…). And for even more originality, you can go for a crema catalana with liquorice powder.
Ingredients & preparation
1 component · Full recipe
Cream
Ingredients
- 500 ml (16.9 fl oz) whole milk
- 4 egg yolks
- 90 g (3.2 oz) caster sugar
- 25 g (0.9 oz) cornstarch
- 1 cinnamon stick
- zest of 1 orange, 1 lemon and 1 lime
- 1 vanilla pod
- 4 star anise
- brown sugar
Preparation
1
Bring the milk to the boil with the spices and citrus zests. Leave to infuse for 15 minutes.
2
In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the sugar until the mixture turns pale. Then add the cornstarch.
3
Pour the contents of the saucepan into the bowl, stirring as you go. (Don’t forget to use a fine-mesh sieve to strain the mixture.)
4
Return everything to the saucepan and cook over a low heat, stirring, until the cream thickens (without letting it come to a full boil).
5
Pour the mixture into crème brûlée dishes and refrigerate for 24 hours.
6
Just before serving, sprinkle with brown sugar and caramelise with a kitchen blowtorch.
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