Examples of Baked Custards

Crème Brûlée

Crème brûlée is a vanilla flavored custard baked and then topped with a layer of caramelized sugar. Your first scoop cracks through the caramel's smooth crispness before you can get to the silky smooth cold custard that lies underneath. The contrast of textures and flavors is memorable. Start with a rich custard that uses cream instead of milk. The other ingredients needed are egg yolks, vanilla, and sugar. Some recipes do not sweeten the custard because of the sweet caramel topping. Vanilla seems to be the traditional flavoring, and while you can use pure vanilla extract or paste, vanilla bean is usually preferred.

Do not throw away the vanilla bean pod after removing the seeds. Wash, let it dry, and then place the pod into your bag of granulated white sugar, and after a few days you have vanilla scented sugar.

Bake the custard in a water bath (bain-marie) as it provides the custard with an even, gentle heat that helps to prevent it from becoming rubbery, tough, or curdled. Crème brûlée are baked in one large dish or in individual ramekins that are both wide and shallow, so you get an ample amount of caramelized sugar with each spoonful of custard.

Bake the custards just until set (a slight wobble is okay), immediately take them out of the water bath (to stop further cooking) and let them cool to room temperature. Then carefully place the custards in the refrigerator uncovered for at least four hours, or until cold and firm.

Steps to caramelizing the sugar:

1. Shortly before serving, remove the custards from the refrigerator and sprinkle a thin even coating of superfine white sugar (castor sugar) over the top of each custard. Use superfine white sugar; it caramelizes quickly and easily, although you can use regular granulated white sugar or even brown sugar.
2. Using a handheld kitchen torch, or under a very hot preheated broiler, caramelize the sugar until it is golden brown and bubbly. If using a torch, place it about 2 inches (5 cm) over the custard at an angle and move the torch around until the sugar melts and caramelizes.
3. Brown the sugar until it caramelizes and just starts to bubble. Try not to warm the custard as you caramelize the sugar, as you want the contrast of hard sugar coating and cold custard.
4. Once the sugar caramelizes, let the crème brûlée sit a few minutes until the layer of caramel becomes hard.

Baked Custard Pies

The combination of eggs, milk, and sugar are combined with other ingredients and flavoring and then poured into a partially baked or raw crust, such as the pumpkin pie example below. Once baked the coagulation of the egg proteins set to form a smooth, creamy, and rich dessert or savory quiche.