Crema catalana
Crema catalana looks like crème brûlée but is made quite differently. That one bakes in a water bath and sets on egg yolk alone; this one cooks in a pan, with starch helping the yolks. So it is ready in half an hour, is lighter, made with milk instead of cream, and smells of lemon peel, orange and cinnamon rather than vanilla.
Your own work in that: 5 min.
- Infusing the milk 20 min
- Custard 15 min
- Chilling 180 min
- Caramelising 5 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneInfuse the milk with the peels
Bring the milk to a boil with the peels and cinnamon, take it off the heat, cover and leave for 20 minutes. Pare the peel thinly, with none of the white pith — that is what turns bitter, not the oils you are after.
Ingredients: 750 ml milk · 1 pcs lemon · 1 pcs orange · 1 pcs cinnamon stick
Thinly pared peel, no white pith.Whisk the yolks with sugar and starch
Whisk the yolks with the sugar, cornflour and salt to a smooth paste. Do it immediately before use: yolks left sitting in sugar without stirring set in spots (cooks say the sugar “burns” them) and form hard grains you can no longer dissolve.
Ingredients: 6 pcs egg yolks · 150 g sugar · 40 g cornflour · 1 pinch salt
Temper the yolks with the warm milk
Strain the milk and add it to the yolks a ladle at a time, whisking. The point is to raise the temperature gradually — hot milk poured in all at once can scramble the yolks.
Ingredients: 6 pcs egg yolks · 150 g sugar · 40 g cornflour · 1 pinch salt
Thicken without letting it boil
Return everything to the pan and stir with a spatula over medium-low heat, reaching into the corners, until it thickens and the spatula leaves a clean trail on the base. Do not boil — the starch lets you go closer to it than in a plain custard, but the yolks will still curdle.
Ingredients: 6 pcs egg yolks · 150 g sugar · 40 g cornflour · 1 pinch salt
A clean trail on the base of the pan — it is done.Pour into shallow dishes
Strain into wide, shallow dishes. The shape is not decoration: the caramel is meant to be a thin sheet over a broad surface, not a cap on a deep pot. Cool and chill for 3 hours.
Ingredients: 6 pcs egg yolks · 150 g sugar · 40 g cornflour · 1 pinch salt
Sugar the top and torch it
Just before serving, scatter over a thin, even layer of sugar and caramelise with a blowtorch or a hot caramelising iron. Do it on cold custard and serve within a few minutes — caramel on a moist custard softens quickly and within a quarter of an hour has lost its crunch.
Ingredients: 60 g sugar
A thin layer of sugar on cold custard, torch, straight to the table.
Before you start
Without a blowtorch
Heat the oven grill to maximum and slide the dishes right under the element for 2–3 minutes. Put them in the freezer for 10 minutes first so the custard has no time to warm through.
Why no water bath
The starch stabilises the yolks, so the custard can be cooked directly. That is exactly what separates crema catalana from crème brûlée, and it spares you baking in a water bath.
Made a day ahead
The custard keeps two days in the fridge, covered with film touching the surface. The sugar goes on and gets torched at the table — never earlier.
