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Coffee Crème Brûlée with Nougatine Biscuits

Serve this icy cold in one large dish or individual ramekins. Serve with Nougatine biscuits as an extra treat or even ladyfingers.

Serves 4

200ml (7fl oz/scant 1 cup) milk

200ml (7fl oz/scant 1 cup) cream

4 large or 5 small organic egg yolks

40g (1 1/2oz/scant 1/4 cup) castor sugar

1 1/2 tablespoon (1 3/4 American tablespoons) Camp coffee essence

4 dessertspoons (1 American tablespoon) Demerara sugar

1 ovenproof dish (19cm wide x 4.5cm deep/(7 1/2 x 1 3/4 inch) or 4 ramekins x 100ml (3 1/2fl oz/scant 1/2 cup) each capacity

Preheat the oven to 150ºC / 300ºF /Gas Mark 2

Put the milk and cream into a heavy bottomed saucepan and bring to the boil. Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar, gradually pour the boiling liquid over the egg yolks whisking all the time. Add the coffee and whisk again.  Pour the mixture through the sieve into an ovenproof dish or 4 ramekins.

Bake in a bain-marie in the preheated oven for about 25-30 minutes until just set but slightly wobbly in the centre, or 40-45 minutes for the individual ramekins. (Shallow wide dishes cook faster, 20 minutes approximately.)

Cool, cover with cling film and chill well.

Sprinkle with Demerara sugar – it should be a thin layer, tip off excess if necessary. Glaze with a blow torch. Coffee crème brûlée is already very rich but serve with a little pouring cream if you must and some nougatine biscuits or ladyfingers.

Nougatine Biscuits

My brother Rory O’Connell makes these lacy and deliciously crisp biscuits, they keep perfectly for several days. Serve them with ice creams, sorbets, mousses and soufflés. They are also perfect with perfectly ripe fruit such as pears or peaches.

175g (6oz) nuts, a mixture, or the entire quantity of a single nut such as almonds, walnuts, pecan nuts and Brazil nuts. Hazelnuts may also be used but should be roasted and peeled before chopping

150g (5oz/generous 1/2 cup) caster or granulated sugar

3/4 teaspoon apple pectin

125g (4 1/2oz/generous 1 stick) butter

50g (2oz/1/4 cup) glucose syrup

2 teaspoons water

Preheat the oven to 190°C / 375ºF / Gas Mark 5

Chop the nuts in a food processor, using the pulse button, to render them to a semi-coarse texture.

In a small saucepan, combine the remaining ingredients and cook on a very low heat just until the mixture is melted and smooth. Add the nuts and stir to mix.

Using a silicone baking mat or an oven tray lined with parchment paper, drop on scant teaspoons of the mixture allowing plenty of room for the mixture to spread as it cooks. A standard oven tray, 40cm x 35cm (15 x 13 inch), will accommodate about 4 biscuits this size. You can of course make smaller biscuits by reducing the amount of mixture.

Cook for about 10 minutes or until the biscuits have spread into lacy and lightly caramelised flat crisps.

The cooked biscuits will be soft and molten when removing from the oven so allow the biscuits to cool slightly on the tray before removing to a wire rack to cool.

Any remaining uncooked mixture will store perfectly in the fridge for up to 5 days.

04/11/2019 (PB) (23454)

This is a recipe by
Darina Allen
View all my recipes

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