Coconut Crème Brûlée

First off I want to mention Caitlin's Operation Beautiful. It's about "ending fat talk one anonymous post-it at a time" by "leaving positive messages on the mirrors of public restrooms" like "you are beautiful". How awesome is that? Check out her post to see all of the wonderful notes people have left, and some of their experiences. I want to go leave some notes around too now. I love the positive impact the blog world can have!! Okay now onto the food.

Usually I post about things in the approximate order I've made them, unless there's some particular reason to post about it sooner (like taking advantage of strawberry season, a blog event, or in this case a request from a friend). I made this coconut crème brûlée for a potluck we hosted a couple of weekends ago. Originally I wanted to make this rootbeer float cake but due to the hot weather, thought a cold dessert might be better.

This crème brûlée was rich and creamy (well okay what crème brûlé isn't?) with a hint of coconut. I'd like to try making crème brûlée (I'm getting tired of copy/pasting that!) with all coconut milk (and no cream) for even more coconut flavour next time! I can never get enough coconut. And I've been dying to make earl grey crème brûlée, but I know not everyone loves the flavour of earl grey so I haven't made that one yet. Maybe white chocolate earl grey crème brûlée, mmmm. I know some people think crème brûlée is difficult to make but it's really not. In fact it's one of the easiest desserts to make I think, provided you have some whisking skills!

And now for a photo of Abby, reaching up to get one of her new toys. I love how her little back feet look - it reminds me of puss 'n boots for some reason.

If this sounds good, you might like:
Creamy Coconut Cake
Coconut Cream Pie
Coconut Madeleines
Coconut Shortbread

Coconut Crème Brûlée
Adapted from Caprial's Desserts

I think my ramekin cups are 6 ounces so I got about 10 ramekins out of this recipe. I also found the suggested 1 tbsp of sugar on top too much so scaled it back to 1/2 tbsp.

2 1/4 cups heavy cream
400 mL can (1 3/4 cup) coconut milk
1 tsp vanilla
8 egg yolks
1 cup granulated sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 to 1 cup superfine sugar

Preheat the oven to 300F.

Place the cream, coconut milk and vanilla in a heavy saucepan over medium heat and bring just to a boil. Meanwhile, whisk together the egg yolks, granulated sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Slowly whisk 1 to 1/2 cups of the hot cream into the egg yolk mixture to temper it, or bring it up to the same temperature. Whisk in the remaining cream,a nd then strain through a fine-mesh sieve. Skim any foam from the surface.

Divide the custard among six 8 ounce ramekins. Set the ramekins in a shallow roasting pan, and fill the pan with enough hot water to reach about haflway up the sides of the remakins. Carefully set the pan in the oven and bake just until set, about 1 hour. To tell if the custards are set, gently shake one; if it moves as one mass, it is done. Remove the ramekins from the water bath. let cool until tepid, the refrigerate until well chilled, about 4 hours (overnight is even better if you have time).

To serve, sprinkle each custard with 1/2 tbsp of superfine sugar. Using a propane torch (or th ebroiler), caramelized the sugar. Serve immediately.