Crème Brûlée with Maracuja and Vanilla

Description

Crème Brûlée is similar to Flan which is a popular dessert in Spain, Mexico and Latin America. Flan is a delicate dessert made from eggs, sweetened condensed milk, cream or whole milk, with flavors such as vanilla, orange, coconut or coffee. Flan was originally brought to Mexico by Spanish settlers, who have also spread this dessert all over Latin America. Crème Brûlée, on the other hand, is a custard dessert with a hard caramel layer on top. In our version, we have flavored the dessert with Mexican vanilla since its woody notes plus the creamy and sweet flavor profile is perfect when combined with the explosion of tangy-sweet pungency of the maracuja.

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 150 degrees celsius. Butterfly the Mexican vanilla bean and scrape out the seeds. Add the seeds and the empty vanilla pod to a small saucepan with the cream. Place over medium-low heat until almost simmering (about 90 degrees celsius).
2. Take the saucepan off the heat when you see the first bubbles and set aside. Meanwhile, whisk egg yolks and sugar by hand in a bowl until pale and creamy and then mix in the maracuja juice. 
3. Slowly pour the slightly cooled (it’s very important that the cream is still warm) cream over the egg mixture, whisk to combine, then strain.
4. Line a deep roasting tray with paper towels so the ramakins can’t slide in the tray. Place four 1-cup-capacity ramekins into the tray and fill the tray with hot tap water until halfway up ramekins.
5. Divide the cream mixture between the ramakins and cover with foil, piercing a few holes in the top. Bake for 25 minutes covered, then remove the foil and bake for another 25 minutes until the custard is just set – slightly jiggly, but not runny.
6. Take out of the tray, set aside to cool and place in the fridge for at least 3 hours before serving.
7. To serve, sprinkle sugar into one of the ramakins and shake to cover the surface. Flip the ramakin upside down into another ramakin to use the excess sugar. Repeat for the remaining ramakins and use more sugar as needed. Caramelize the sugar using a blowtorch by moving back and forth over the sugar – be careful not to hold the torch in one spot for too long since that will result in burning the sugar instead of caramelizing it. Add some fresh maracuja or passionfruit and Buen Provecho!