How about triangulating with different recipes?
Like this one: Creme Brulee
Oven temp: 325
Cooking time: 35 minutes
In fact, Pascale, I have looked at other recipes, and considered trying them. Your recipe reminds me somewhat of this recipe, for instance, though as engineers, they are satisfied with vanilla extract.
Shirley Corriher's Cookwise has a nice recipe, with the added twist of a crumb crust shell!The reasons why I find myself doggedly pursuing this recipe from Best Recipe are manifold. Firstly, I've suffered all my life from completism. I've gotten better over the years--for instance I don't slog through a book to the finish if I am not enjoying it. But I still have tinges of the disease. Secondly, I've had a lot of success with recipes from the America's Test Kitchen crowd over the years, and I'm hoping that the hiccups here are just a fluke. To be clear, the unflavored custard of this recipe to my palate tastes great. It's just the texture that I'm working on.
Finally, and this is one Jean will appreciate, I can only make so much creme brulee. My first experiment was unsettling enough that Renee will have nothing to do with it. And Jean just plain don't like custards, as I've mentioned before. So this experiment is just for me, and I have to eat all my results (no, I won't throw out perfectly good food). Since I feel I'm so close to getting this right, I don't want to hare off on another tangent, introducing a whole new pack of variables that need nailing down. If this next experiment is still off, I'm confident I can get it right by the fourth try.
Once I get it right, I'll probably put away the ramekins and not return to them for a long while. I've got lots of other recipes that are a tad more forgiving of deviation that I want to try. Still, I'll probably try Pascale's recipe come the holidays, especially if she has done that recipe herself and vouches for it. Pascale?
Are you nuts? I live alone, and if I made creme brulee I'd have to eat it all myself! ;-)
ReplyDeleteI did hunt around a bit, out of curiosity, for recipes ~ and the overall consensus was for higher oven temps than you've been using.
Too bad we're not neighbors, because I WOULD help you eat some of your experiments. I like creme brulee.
In moderation.
ReplyDelete"if I made creme brulee I'd have to eat it all myself"
So? I live with two other people, and I do have to eat it all myself! ;^)~
"Too bad we're not neighbors..."
Yes, too bad. And I somehow suspect that creme brulee does not mail across the continent too well...
Yes, yes, tweaking recipes is perfectly okay based on research from other recipes if you're not sure on something, or tweaking based on experimentation if you've made similar things.
ReplyDeleteFor example... my chicken and pine nut alfredo lasagna? The recipe was originally Spinach and Mushroom lasagna. I like neither spinach or mushrooms, but wanted a white sauce lasagna, tweaking was in order, and each time making it it seems to come out better than the time before.
Chicken and pine nut alfredo? Umm, sounds good! I also like (raw) spinach, though I generally agree that cooked, it's nasty. And mushrooms used to be okay, but nowadays I just pick 'em out.
ReplyDeleteSo send me yer recipe already (warning, white sauce pasta is another thing Jean won't eat, so this is something else I'll have to pad my own waistline with, ugh).