Praline Crème Brûlée (No Oven)

Tonight, it’s a very simple recipe I’m sharing on the blog: praline crème brûlée! Well, I say simple… because I’m going to give you a little tip for making it finger in ze noze! Crème brûlée is cream, egg yolks, sugar and whatever flavouring you want to add.

It sounds simple put like that, but in fact, the hardest thing to get right is the baking in the oven. Some people use a high temperature in a bain-marie (that’s what I do) while others bake it at low temperature but without a bain-marie. You have to tame your oven and find the cooking mode and temperature that work for YOU. And sometimes it takes several attempts (I’ve lost count of the number of tests I did when I was starting out!!). In my case, I ended up with 30-35 minutes of baking at 160°C, in a bain-marie then. For a cream that takes 5 minutes to prepare. The baking can seem long as a result…

Not to mention one of the most infuriating things when you make a vanilla crème brûlée (my guilty pleasure), which is to realise when tasting it that all the vanilla seeds have sunk to the bottom. Yes, infuriating!

But I have the solution! Well, it’s not really mine… credit where credit is due, right? It’s Valérie from the blog C’est ma fournée (an excellent blog by the way, I strongly encourage you to take a look) that we owe this find to. What if crème brûlée didn’t bake in the oven??? It may sound odd but it’s possible!! On the show Dans la peau d’un chef, Christophe Michalak made a super-quick crème brûlée recipe with no oven baking (and it’s true that, come to think of it, some chefs use crème brûlée as an insert in entremets and there’s no oven baking, obviously). No oven baking, but still cooking of course, since the egg yolks cook on contact with the hot cream. And if all this is possible, it’s thanks to pectin X58, a pectin that reacts on contact with milk proteins.

I can see you coming… yet another pastry thing we don’t have in our cupboards… don’t worry, neither do I!! So, thanks to Valérie who tested it for us, you should know that the result is identical with NH pectin! Admittedly, you still need pectin! But then again, if you bake a little, it’s the kind of thing you absolutely must get hold of, especially for fruit jellies. And it’s fairly easy to find now (online, at G Detou in Paris or at Zôdio).

So the recipe becomes super quick and super simple to make. Admittedly, it isn’t the traditional crème brûlée recipe (with all due respect to some!) but it’s still really handy! Got an impromptu meal in an hour? Presto, the cream is ready in 5 minutes, an hour in the freezer and it’s done! You can of course also leave the cream in the freezer overnight (or longer), you’ll just need to take the creams out in the morning for lunch or at midday for the evening.

Michalak’s recipe uses only full-fat whipping cream. Having done many tests, I have a slight preference for the cream and milk mix, a little less heavy. Here for example, instead of using 300g of cream, I chose to use 200g of cream and 100g of milk. Do as you prefer. I tested this recipe with vanilla, perfect!! Here, I’m giving you my version with praline, it’s super indulgent! As the praline is sweet, I reduced the amount of sugar. If you choose to make this recipe with vanilla, or lemon zest, with no added sugar, stick to the original amount of sugar (I give the quantity).

That’s what I had to tell you about this magical little recipe. Don’t hesitate to try it and tell me what you thought. As for crème brûlée purists, don’t be outraged, it’s just another way of doing it.