It's been so long since I've made creme brûlée. Actually, the last time I made it was about 2 weeks ago when this photo was taken. I'm such a procrastinator an extremely busy person. Anyways, I first learned how to make this in a foods class in High School and it quickly became one of my favorite desserts. Maybe even my all time favorite dessert. No, wait - that's definitely donuts. I don't know why I didn't try a dairy-free version sooner. It's really similar to the original. My only complaint is that the only granulated sugar I had in my pantry was coconut sugar which isn't nearly as pretty as the traditional cane sugar...but my only complaint is cosmetic! I have no complaints when it comes to the taste of this!
Now that I know I can successfully make this dairy free, I can start making other flavors! Chocolate mint, lemon raspberry, maybe something with sunbutter? Every time I finish a recipe I always start thinking of variations that eventually get written on my infinite cooking list. Speaking of my infinite cooking list, since I've been cooking so much for this blog, I've been using my cookbooks less and less. I LOVE my cookbooks! Especially the ones with recipes for dishes I can actually eat, but I love them all! So I've been thinking about doing a cook book dinner night once or twice a week. I think it would be fun!
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Traditional tasting crème brûlée made dairy-free and paleo.
Ingredients
- 1 can full fat coconut milk
- 3 Tbsp honey
- 4 egg yolks
- 1 vanilla bean
- pinch of salt
- 3 tsp coconut sugar
- 3 halved strawberries to garnish, optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325ºF
- Whisk egg yolks in a small bowl. Set aside.
- In a small sauce pan, whisk together coconut milk, honey, and salt. Split the vanilla bean in half lengthwise and use a knife to scrape the insides out into the sauce pan. Cut the scraped vanilla bean into 2-3 pieces and add to the pan.
- Warm the mixture over medium heat while occasionally whisking. Allow the mixture to heat until hot but not boiling, about 10 minutes. You want to see steam begin to rise from the pan.
- As soon as the mixture is heated, immediately remove the from heat. Remove vanilla bean pieces with a slotted spoon.
- Slowly pour a small amount of the heated mixture into the egg yolks while constantly whisking. This tempers the eggs, or gradually brings them closer to the temperature of the dish they will be added to. So it basically prevents them from turning into scrambled eggs when you mix everything together.
- Now you can whisk the egg mixture into your saucepan with everything else. Divide this mixture equally between the 6 ramekins.
- Place ramekins in a metal baking dish. Add about an inch of hot water to the pan.
- Bake 30-45 mins until the middle of the custard is just barely set. It won’t be firm and will jiggle a little.
- Allow too cool then refrigerate wrapped in plastic wrap or in an airtight container until thoroughly chilled.
- Immediately before serving, sprinkle ½ teaspoon of coconut sugar on top of each dessert. Tap on the sides of the ramekin to help distribute the sugar evenly.
- Tie your hair back and secure any loose clothing. Yes, I’m serious…and paranoid about lighting my hair on fire.
- Use a kitchen torch to carefully burn the sugar until it has melted and browned. If you don’t have a kitchen torch, these will only take about 3 or 4 minutes under a broiler to achieve the same effect.
- Garnish with halved strawberries, if desired, and enjoy! Tastes like the real deal, doesn’t it?
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