I really love your peaches...

Mmm. Crème brûlée is one of my very favorite desserts. I'm a little surprised that I've never made it before. Well, not really I suppose, since I don't have a kitchen torch. And kitchen torches are a necessity for a perfect crème brûlée (as is evident by the above photo). Oh well, it still tasted delicious.

Overall, I really enjoyed this recipe. The custard was perfectly light and creamy, and the sugar topping was nice and caramelized (although not very pretty). I decided to make a just a few minor adaptations to the original recipe. First, I made my own pie crust (recipe here)for a couple of reasons. First, I didn't want the shrinkage that the other girls experienced from the Pillsbury dough. Second, I didn't want that much dough because I was only going to make individual tarts. (As much as the hubs and I would like to eat an entire tart pan of crème brûlée, we probably shouldn't.)

Next, I didn't even use peaches (although I do love them as the title of this post, in homage to SMB, suggests). It's not quite peach season here, so none was ripe enough to my liking to use in this delicious recipe. So, I used blueberries instead (which are very much in season here right now). I also put them at the bottom of the tart to try and get that extra crispy sugar topping.



I loved making the custard! It was so easy. My favorite part, of course, was eating the leftovers that didn't fit into the ramekins. I think I could make and eat custard every day. That would be healthy, right? I used Mexican vanilla instead of the vanilla bean.



After cooling (and tasting many times), it was time to brûlée! I was a bit nervous about this part because, technically, our ramekins aren't supposed to go under the broiler. Regardless, I decided to be daring and try it anyway. Because I was so nervous, I probably didn't leave them in there as long as I should have, though... so they only got a little spotty browned. The non-browned spots were still crusty, though, so that was good! Lesson of the day: buy a kitchen torch!