Receta Salted Caramel Pots de Crème | Baking Partners June '15
A break when extended for too long will make you rusty. Thats exactly what has happened to me. The rusty lazy holiday feeling aggravated thanks to the lazy weather in Bengaluru. But nothing could stop me from trying out the salted caramel pots de crème suggested by Tamy of SavoryKitchen Table which was this months challenge for Baking Partners by Swathi .
Pots De Crème is the French name for Custard. And custard is something which is simple yet can go wrong . But with custard powder its hard to fail. Custard powder makes it all the more easy and thats exactly what the doctor ordered. Though two choices were there I chose the salted caramel version. Since my family is not very big on caramel though I am, I decided to experiment the recipe and also use the custard powder instead of using the eggs. Still the below given measurements are guestimates as I improvised at some steps.
Ingredients:
- Sugar: 8 tbsp + more for custard
- Water: 2 tbsp
- Sea Salt: a big pinch
- Whipping Cream: 1 1/4 cup
- Custard Powder : 3 tbsp
- Milk: 3/4 cup
- salt: 1/2 tsp (For garnish)
Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 160 C/ 325F. Adjust racks of the oven and prepare ramekins on a baking dish. Add enough water in the baking dish to go go halfway up the sides of the ramekins.
In a saucepan add sugar, salt and water. Heat until sugar completely dissolves, stirring. Increase heat and bring the mixture to a rolling boil.
Boil for 8 minutes until you get a deep amber color.
At the same time in another saucepan heat about 1/2 cup of milk adding around 3-4 tbsp of sugar and cook stirring until the sugar dissolves and it comes to a boil.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the remaining milk and custard powder into a paste. When the milk +sugar mix boil, reduce the heat and stir in the custard paste. Continue cooking till the sauce thickens. And then remove from heat and let it cool for a while.
Meanwhile whip the cream with powdered sugar till soft peaks form. Once the custard mix is cooled a bit, fold in the cream to this.
Put the caramel back on fire at low heat and add in the cream+ custard mixture whisking well so that it flavours the custard properly and we get a brownish thick sauce.
Remove from heat and sieve into a bowl. From the bowl pour into ramekins. Bake the ramekins for 35-40 minutes until the edges are set and centres become jiggly.
Cool completely on wirerack. Cover with a plastic wrap//saran and chill for atleast 4 hours before serving garnish with more salt.
Mine was a perfect pot de crème texturewise . But tastewise it was a bit more bitter than I expected. Maybe the sugar needs to be adjusted next time.
Hopefully this will set the ball rolling for more posts.. Lets see how others did the challenge.