Creme Caramel

There are few desserts I find more satisfying than a Crème Caramel. Smooth, sweet and creamy, it’s a taste sensation. Creme Caramel put simply is a baked custard sitting on a syrup sauce...... as opposed to creme brulee, which is custard with a hard caramel top.

Recipe from Woman's Day magazine, Issue 3: January 17 2011, page 55

Ingredients

1 ¼ cups caster sugar
¼ cup water
300ml carton cream
1 cup milk
3 eggs
3 egg yolks

Method

Preheat oven to moderately slow, 150°C

In a medium saucepan, combine 1 cup sugar and 1/4 cup cold water. Stir over low heat, without boiling, until sugar dissolves. Increase the heat to medium and bring to the boil. Cook, without stirring, brushing down sides of pan occasionally with a wet pastry brush, for 5-7 minutes or until the mixture is a deep golden caramel colour.

Pour caramel toffee mixture evenly between 8 x ½ cup ramekins, swirling each so that it comes about 2cm up the sides of the ramekins. Place in a baking dish. Set aside to cool completely.

In a medium saucepan, combine cream, milk and remaining sugar. Stir over low heat until the sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil, then remove from heat. Cool for 5 minutes.

In a medium bowl, whisk eggs and egg-yolks together.
(In this photo it looks like I have 8 egg yolks but 2 of the eggs that I used just so happened to have twin yolks!)

Whisk in milk mixture. Pour custard into ramekins and add enough hot water to baking dish to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins. The hot water creates an even distribution of heat, which helps the custard to set gently and evenly.

Bake for 30 minutes until set. Remove from pan and cool completely. Chill overnight. Dip ramekins in boiling water for 30 seconds to loosen. Turn out onto a serving plate to serve.







Notes & Tips

Pour the custard through a strainer when adding it to the ramekins, to remove any sediment. This will make the custard silky smooth.


Variation

To make coconut crème caramel, substitute the milk with light coconut milk and add 1 teaspoon coconut essence. Garnish with toasted shredded coconut and lime rind

Home-made Vanilla Ice Cream

Making home-made ice cream from scratch is so easy if you have the help of an ice-cream maker and this recipe is a good basic one that you can use to make vanilla ice cream as well as other flavours such as mint chip or cookies & cream.

As we are using pure, fresh ingredients for this recipe, just remember that your home-made ice cream will not have the same characteristics as commercially prepared ice cream since most store-bought versions use gums and presevatives to make them firmer. If you desire a firmer consistency, transfer the ice cream to an airtight container and store in the freezer until desired consistency is reached, usually two or more hours.

You may substitute lower fat creams and milk (reduced fat or low fat) for heavy cream and whole milk for a low-fat version of this recipe but keep in mind that this may change the taste, consistency and texture of the ice cream since the higher the fat content, the richer and creamier the result.

Adapted from the recipe in Cuisinart Automatic Frozen Yoghurt-Ice Cream & Sorbet Maker Instruction & Recipe Booklet, page 4

Makes approx. 1.25L

Ingredients

1 cup whole milk, well chilled
¾ cup caster sugar
2 cups heavy cream, well chilled
2 tsps vanilla extract (or 1 vanilla bean, split lengthways, seeds scraped)

Method

1. In a medium bowl, use a whisk to combine the milk and sugar until the sugar is dissolved.
2. Stir in the heavy cream and vanilla to taste.
3. Churn mixture in an ice-cream machine according to the manufacturer's directions
4. Serve with toppings of choice

Variations:

Cookies & Cream Ice cream: Add 3/4 cup coarsely chopped cookies or your favourite candy (chocolate chip, Oreos etc) during the last 5 minutes of churning. 

Mint Chip Ice cream: Omit the vanilla and replace with 1 to 1½ teaspoons peppermint extract. Chop 120g bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate into tiny uneven pieces. Add the chopped chocolate during the last 5 minutes of churning.

Ginger Milk Custard

I was watching Episode 70 of MasterChef Australia the other day and saw that one of the contestants on the show, Poh had made a ginger milk custard as part of her cooking challenge. Realising that this dessert was actually something I had been shown how to make by my auntie in the past, hubby was quite keen on me making him some to taste :p

Ginger milk curd (Chinese: 薑汁撞奶), also known as ginger-juice milk curd or simply ginger milk, is a Chinese dessert. The main ingredients are ginger and milk.

It should taste like "tofufa" but with a nice kick of ginger. This tasty dessert is nice to eat at anytime of the day or night :)

So, here's my auntie's recipe for how to make Ginger Milk Custard:

Serves 1

Ingredients:

125ml milk
1 tsp sugar
1 - 2 tsp ginger juice
a few drops of white vinegar (to help curdle the milk)

Method:

1. Put ginger juice and vinegar into a mug.

2. Heat milk with sugar in a small saucepan and stir until sugar dissolves. Once the milk reaches a simmer (when little bubbles form on the surface), take saucepan off the heat IMMEDIATELY.

3. Stir for one to two minutes with a wooden spoon. (This is to lower the temperature).

4. Pour milk mixture into the mug containing the ginger juice and vinegar. Then, using another mug (of equal size), pour the liquid in and out of the two mugs 10 times. When completed, pour the milk into a serving bowl and leave it to set. Do not disturb the mixture for around 10 minutes.

5. Once mixture has curdled, serve it warm. (Texture should be very soft, kinda like a “tofu-fa” )

Notes and tips:

To get ginger juice, you need to firstly grate the ginger (without the skin) and after that squeeze the grated ginger through a fine cloth or filter to get it's juice. Alternatively, grate the ginger into a bowl and then use the back of a spoon to press the grated ginger against the bowl to squeeze the juice out.

For a stronger ginger taste, I would recommend adding 2 teaspoons of ginger juice to this dish