Creme Caramel (with a little help from Mary Berry!)
Creme caramel, baked custard, flan. Call it what you will, this classic dessert is delicious, creamy and easy to make at home. WIth a helpful tip from mary berry, you’ll never go wrong with this simple recipe.
Creme caramel, baked custard or flan – it’s a classic dessert everyone’s probably heard of but might not know just how easy it is to make. With a special tip from Mary Berry, this simple recipe will show you how.
A lot of the time the kids dictate what we’re going to bake, but these crème caramels were all for the grown ups! Creme brules are one of my favourite desserts and I used to make them all the time, but we wanted to try these to see how they would compare.
And they were a winner! The creamy vanilla custard, goes so well with the caramel topping. They’re definitely something we’ll do again (and again.)
How can kids help make crème caramel?
There are a few steps in the recipe that kids can help with. It uses quite a few eggs so its great if you want to get some practice at that.
Apart from measuring the ingredients out, I dont tend to let the kids too near the caramel. I dont think young children and boiling sugar go together but older children may be able to help with this.
But children can help heat up the milk and whisk everything together. It’s a very simple dessert, that kids can really get involved in making.
How do you stop the egg scrambling?
The part we found trickiest, was making sure the egg in the custard didn’t scramble when the milk was added. The key to making sure that doesn’t happen is ensuring the milk isn’t too hot. But how hot is too hot?!
A lot of recipes just tell you to heat the milk, but I found an instruction in Mary Berry’s crème caramel recipe which described the milk as needing to be warm but not hot. We tend to go for putting our finger in the milk to test it. It should feel nice and warm. Following this tip seems to have done the trick for us (thanks Mary Berry!)
Ingredients
For the caramel
175g granulated sugar
150ml water
For the baked custard
30g caster sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract
4 eggs
600ml milk
How to make the crème caramel
Make the caramel
Get your kids to weigh the sugar then add it to a small pan. Add the water, then gently heat the sugar, stirring it, until all the sugar has dissolved.
Increase the heat a little and bring the sugar to a boil, without stirring it.
Keep it boiling until it turns a nice golden colour. Ours took five minutes or so, but changed from white to golden quite quickly at the end so keep an eye on it.
Pour the caramel into the ramekins (this is a job for grown ups).
Make the custard
Get your kids to crack the eggs into a mixing bowl. If any rogue shell goes in, use a piece of larger shell to fish it out (shell sticks to shell so we find this the easiest way.)
Add the sugar and vanilla extract to the eggs and give it a whisk.
Measure the milk – if you have them, use your digital scales on the ml setting. Heat the milk, either on your hob/cooker or microwave until it is just warm. You don’t want it to be too hot or it will scramble your eggs. You can test it with your finger.
Slowly pour the milk into your bowl with the eggs in it. Get your kids to whisk it as you pour or vice versa.
Bake the crème caramel
Pour the custard into each ramekin then put them into a roasting tin. Add enough hot water so it comes half way up the sides of your dishes.
Bake in the oven for about 35-40 minutes. They’re ready when they’ve just set – so they should be firm to the touch but still a wee bit wobbly.
Remove them from the oven then leave them to cool before chilling them for 8 hours or over night.
Turn them out on to individual plates when it’s time to serve them.
Enjoy!
Creme caramel
Ingredients
For the caramel
- 175 g granulated sugar
- 150 ml water
For the baked custard
- 30 g caster sugar
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 4 eggs
- 600 ml milk
Instructions
Make the caramel
- Weigh the sugar then add it to a small pan. Add the water, then gently heat the sugar, stirring it, until all the sugar has dissolved.
- Increase the heat a little and bring the sugar to a boil, without stirring it.
- Keep it boiling until it turns a nice golden colour. Ours took five minutes or so, but changed from white to golden quite quickly at the end so keep an eye on it.
- Pour the caramel into the ramekins.
Make the custard
- Crack the eggs into a mixing bowl.
- Add the sugar and vanilla extract to the eggs and give it a whisk.
- Measure the milk – if you have them, use your digital scales on the ml setting. Heat the milk, either on your hob/cooker or microwave until it is just warm. You don't want it to be too hot or it will scramble your eggs. You can test it with your finger.
- Slowly pour the milk into your bowl with the eggs in it. Whisk it as you pour.
Bake the crème caramel
- Pour the custard into each ramekin then put them into a roasting tin. Add enough hot water so it comes half way up the sides of your dishes.
- Bake in the oven for about 35-40 minutes. They're ready when they've just set – so they should be firm to the touch but still a wee bit wobbly.
- Remove them from the oven then leave them to cool before chilling them for 8 hours or over night.
- Turn them out on to individual plates when it's time to serve them.
- Enjoy!
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