Peach Creme Brulee

I love creme brulee. It is one of my favorite desserts and I order it whenever I see it on the menu, so I was excited to try this week's recipe.

I knew as soon as it was posted that I was going to make a change. Rather than use an ordinary pie crust, this just begged for a shortbread crust. I make my own pie crust all the time, but I have not made a shortbread crust before. As others reported, it did shrink a little, but not too badly. The amount of butter did cause some trouble. It melted and left some holes in the crust as it was baking.
I put the peaches on the bottom of my tart to try to get the crispy sugar shell on the top.I think that we can universally say that the broiler is not the appropriate tool for making a creme brulee. It definitely did not make the hard caramelized sugar shell that I was looking for. And I was terrified of burning it up.That said, we ate it tonight and even the kids liked it. It was surprisingly easy to make and I will probably do it again. But with a real kitchen torch next time.

Creme Brulee Tart with strawberries

So when I read the recipe for this week I was very intrigued. I’ve never made a Crème Brulee. I am however a huge fan of eating them.  I’ve also lately been on a chef/cooking binge reading everything I can get my paws on about cooking, chef bio's and doing a fair amount of cooking and baking myself. So I was up for the challenge.  Alas, I didn’t have the proper equipment. No torch, not the right pans, and no peaches also my husband, Eric, and I are also on a mission to eat dinner for $8.00 or less a day so I had to make things work with in that budget as well. So after I cataloged my kitchen I chose to use strawberries instead of peaches as they were on sale and make due with a pie pan. 

Surprisingly making this was fun and pretty easy.  I baked the recommended pie crust, sliced up my strawberries and decided I would follow Alyson’s advice and put my fruit on the bottom.  Also instead of 2% i used fat free milk. It seems to hold up just fine. 

Now for the part that I am going have to buy a torch for. I just could not get my broiler to make the typical crunch crust with the caramelized sugar, and my foil around the edge of the pie pan could have been on a little better so I had a few burnt spots. I promise it is not nearly as burnt as it looks, my camera and the light in my place made it look much darker.

Though it didn't have the typical crunch crust, and sort of looked like a cheese pizza once sliced. It was really delicious. The strawberries on the bottom were really good and added a nice tartness to the crème. Eric I think really wanted to nick another piece.  I think next time I will make the miniature ones in a muffin pan and break out the pyro in me with a proper torch. The first go around was a success and I will make it again with a few tweaks.