crème car·a·mel

I have just bought the most beautiful terrineand frankly I could not resist using it to make my favourite dessert for this round of Sugar High Friday # 17 - the dairy edition, as decreed by Andrew at Spittoon Extra.

An old favourite made in a new shape. And to make it even trickier, a new recipe, the recipe in French, from the booklet that came with the terrine. Oh! I couldn't even cheat - the English and German recipe sections did not have the crème caramel recipe, but instead a recipe for spiced fruit loaf! Make of that what you will.

The recipe for crème caramel from the Le Creuset recipe booklet, as interpreted be me is :

Crème Caramel

750mL milk
1 vanilla pod
150g caster sugar
6 tablespoons of water
butter for greasing the terrine
6 eggs
75g caster sugar

Lightly butter the 28cm ot 1.2L terrine.
Put the milk in a pot, split the vanilla pod and scrape the seeds into the milk, add the pod. Heat until almost boiling then turn off the heat and leave to infuse while you make the caramel.
Put the 150g sugar and the water in a heavy bottomed pot. Keep on a low heat until the sugar is completely dissolved so the caramel does not crystallise. Once the sugar has dissolved turn up the heat and boil until a good caramel is achieved. Keep an eye on it because it can change very quickly. Pour the caramel into the terrine to cover the sides and bottom of the dish. Leave to cool.
Put a pan with enough water to come half way up the terrine in a 150°c oven to heat.
Beat the eggs and the 75g sugar, add the infused milk discarding the vanilla pod. Sieve into the caramel covered terrine. Without covering with the lid, place in the bain-marie and cook for 45 minutes or until it is set and a knife inserted comes out clean. Leave to cool then refrigerate.
When ready to serve run a knife around the edge then stand in a sink of hot water for a few minutes to melt the caramel. Turn out and slice to serve. The longer it is refrigerated the easier it will be to turn out and the better it will keep its shape.

I honestly didn't think my mother's recipe could be beaten, and while this is not too different (more eggs), this was incredibly good, it could have been the terrine, and to test this, next time I will follow mum's recipe cooked in the terrine.

I have posted the photo above to the flickr group foodography 2 : Dairy - Have a look, there are some great photos!