Coffee Creme Brulee

Creme brulee is one of Toby and my favorite desserts. We usually get it at restaurants and a few years ago started making it at home. This is actually a really easy dessert to make. It is perfect for dinner parties because you can make it the night before. In fact, that is what alot of restaurants do anyway. As you know, all week I have been blogging about my All Local.All Rhode Island party ( sponsored by Foodbuzz.) This was one of our desserts. I used all local eggs,cream, and coffee beans. I did a play on coffee milk ( one of the most beloved drinks in RI.) Well, for me anyway. Growing up we would always drink coffee milk. Envision chocolate syrup for chocolate milk. This is what coffee milk was. Coffee syrup that  you mix with milk. This probably got me on my caffeine kick early on in life. 

So this dessert was an ode to coffee milk. This is a basic recipe for creme brulee, but with instant coffee. For some pizazz we topped these with chocolate covered espresso beans. YUM! Invest in some cute ramekins. You can use them to store dipping sauces, salt, sugar. I love them. I used a mini torch to brulee the desserts, but if you don't have one you can broil them in the oven until the sugar caramelizes. Here is the recipe I used on FoodNetwork.com.

Ingredients

• 4 egg yolks
• 1 cup sugar, divided
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon instant coffee
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.

In a medium-size bowl, beat egg yolks and 6 tablespoons sugar with a whisk for approximately 1 minute, or until smooth. Reserve.

In a second medium-size bowl, add coffee and 1/4 cup creme. Whisk thoroughly until smooth, then add remaining creme and whisk until well blended. Add coffee creme mixture and vanilla to egg yolks. Use a rubber spatula to gently fold together.

Use a ladle to pour mixture into individual ramekins, 3/4 of the way to the top.
Place ramekins into a roasting pan. Transfer to oven. Before closing oven door, pour water into pan a water bath) until it reaches 1/2 way up the side of the ramekins.

Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, or until when you shake the pan, the brulee giggles slightly. Remove from oven and leave out on counter, allowing the residual heat of the water to finish the cooking process.

When brulees have fully solidified and cooled down, sprinkle 1 1/2
tablespoons of sugar evenly over top each individual portion. Under a watchful eye, use a small blowtorch to caramelize the sugar.Alternatively, place ramekins 1-inch below oven broiler until sugar caramelizes.