Crème Brouillé

There’s a whole language to cooking and cookery books that most people never ever learn. Unless you were tied to the apron strings of your mother, or possibly had a very conscientious Home Economics teacher, if you are under the age of twenty-five, mixing and whisking is probably the extent of it.

I learnt ‘fold’ from an episode of Blue Peter years and years ago, where some unfortunate child was trying to teach the world to make some awful looking diabetic apple cake thing. At some point there was folding in of egg whites and a metal spoon and something about air. It was like some sort of juvenile magic trick.

I certainly know ‘rub’ and ‘blend’ and even ‘cream’ but anything more technical and I’m lost. You may as well be speaking French to me. Vague shadows of comprehension hover around the edges of my consciousness but in truth I’m as lost as Alice in Wonderland.

‘Coat the back of a spoon’ is a case in point. Take a spoon out of a cup of coffee and there is still residue left on the spoon. Nobody ever bothers to tell you what exactly you’re looking for.

I made Crème Brûlée, or at least attempted to. I was never much of a fan of it, too much like the cold custard my grandparents put on everything when I was a child. That cold, slimy, viscose feeling as it slid down your neck. Yuck!

Anyway, six years ago, in a bustling Spanish restaurant overlooking the sea, I tasted the most extraordinary Crème Brûlée of my life. It came to the table in flames and was sweet, and creamy, with a lovely smack of brandy from the topping. I’ve been chasing it ever since. I’ve eaten tens of Crème Brûlées, wherever I can lay my hands on one. And they always disappoint.

Granted, most of them actually are set and resemble the actual dish. Unlike mine, its sorry poor scrambled relation.

So there I was, standing over my cream, waiting for it to thicken enough to ‘coat the back of a spoon.’ I never actually knew that was simply thick enough so that when you swipe you finger in a line along the spoon, the line stays clear.

Well, my eggs started to scramble. Little tiny clumps rising to the surface, as if to mock me. There was only one thing for it, a quick blitz with a hand blender which unfortunately added just enough air that they couldn’t set when I poured the custard into ramekins.

They were rescued somewhat by shoving them in the freezer for a couple of hours before we ate them. This at least made them solid enough to bear the weight of the caramelised sugar. And they didn’t taste of scrambled eggs at all.

But all the same, Cookery Books 1, Louis 0.