Bake 52 Week 43 Creme Caramel

This week's recipe was written to make 8 - 6 oz ramekins of Creme Caramel.  I only had one 6 oz ramekin and I didn't know what I'd do with 7 other servings of Creme Caramel anyway...  Custard desserts are not well suited to sitting in the break room until someone decides they want one.  So I decided to half the recipe.  That required me to measure out half an egg.  Turns out an egg is 50 mls. 

I did buy some more ramekins - but only a set of four.  Plus a bought an oven thermometer.  I found out that oven is 25 degrees low but also takes a lot longer to heat up than I thought.  The oven counts down until it's at temperature.  But actually it was still heating long after the beeper went off.  That explains why some things seemed to take so much longer than the recipe called for or why sometimes it seemed like the oven was fine.  It all depended on how long the oven had been on before I put something in the oven.

Getting things ready...

I'm not sure why the recipe called for having a kitchen towel in the cooking pan but ever obedient I did it. 

Measuring the egg...

After prepping the custard ingredients I got started on the caramel.  It came to a boil really quickly.

I stood and watched it while it boiled for the 6 minutes, waiting for it to turn color.  The recipe warns that once it starts to change color it can burn quickly.  So I may have pulled it off earlier than I needed to.

The caramel set up so quickly that it didn't even spread to fill the bottom of the bigger dish. 

I added a bit at the last which lumped up and formed the darker bit in the bottom.  I ended up with a few drops on the counter... it hadn't sugared, success!

I mixed up the sugar, eggs, vanilla and salt.

Then I got the half and half going on the stove. 

I was getting bored, wondering when I'd know that the cream was steaming and contemplating turning up the temperature when I suddenly realized that there was steam billowing up off the cream.  Time to mix it with the eggs and sugar.

Then I strained the mix into a measuring cup.  I really didn't think there would be anything to strain out but there was.

Yuck... I'm glad I didn't skip this step.  I poured the custard into the four dishes, put the whole pan in the oven and then added boiling water to the bottom of the pan until it was about half way up the ramekins.  About 35 minutes later they were done.

A couple of the edges got a little dark but not bad.  After letting them sit on the counter for about 2 hours I covered them with plastic wrap and put them in the frig.  Two hours later they were ready to eat! 

I was worried they wouldn't come out of the dishes (especially the clear glass ones because the sides aren't straight) but they both came out just fine. 

There was quite a bit of caramel left in the dish but plenty came out to cover the custard. 

As you may suspect (since the only ingredients are sugar, egg and cream) it tastes very egg-y.  It's nice, mild, sweet... Not really my type of thing but surprisingly easy to make.  If you like custard (or flan) give this recipe a try.  Michelle was our host this week.  Check out her blog for the full recipe.