Creme Brulee: Take 2 (and final take!)

So this is what heaven tastes like!! I cannot believe I have lived 27 years of my life without a blowtorch! Well no more, I am in love! I feel like I go back in time when I light up the torch and caramelise the sugar, it somehow soothes me.

Anyway, I saw a recipe for a creme brulee which uses marscapone cheese, which, if I'm honest, I could eat an entire container on its own! So I thought it might be the perfect marriage, creme brulee with marscapone! I adjusted the amounts a little and it was so delicious I have made two batches in as many days (and I may be developing a blowtorch dependency....).

I've decided to try and new way of posting my recipe, which is a little more fun for me along the way too, photographing each step of the process, not just the finished result. Hopefully it makes it a little easier to recreate also, however will make each post kind of lengthy... Will see how it goes anyway!!

1. This is the list of ingredients you will need:

1/3 cup of caster sugar

3 egg yolks and 1 full egg

3 tablespoons of milk

300ml of cream

250g of marscapone cheese

Raspberries

Demerra/raw sugar

2. Heat the milk and cream in a saucepan until almost boiling, but not quite.

3. In a separate saucepan, combine eggs and sugar

4. Whisk eggs and sugar until pale and creamy, only a minute or so.

5.  Add the marscapone to the egg mix, 1/3 at a time and whisk

6. The mixture should now be fairly thick and smooth, however both time I made this the marscapone was still a little lumpy. I think if it were at room temperature this would help, however it smoothes out completely in the next step, so there is no need to worry.

7. Add the hot milk/cream mixture to the egg/marscapone mixture and whisk over a low heat.

8. While the cream mixture is slowing heating, you can prepare the raspberries. Simply put a few raspberries in each dish that you will serve the creme brulee in. The recipe said 3 in each, I think that is a little frugal!

9. After about 10 minutes of stirring, the cream mixture (which is now "creme") should have thickened and needs to be strained into a jug. This is to get out any of the egg bits that didn't mix, or any of the creme mix that has hardened from cooling.

10. From here, you want to pour the warm creme into the prepared dishes for serving. This quantity would serve 4 smaller sized portions, or 3 happier sized ones!

11. Once all the creme has been evenly poured over the berries, they need to set in the fridge for a few hours. The recipe recommended overnight, but I don't have that kind of patience, so popped them in the freezer for 20 minutes to help speed up the setting process! once they have set, pour a couple of teaspoons of raw/demerra sugar over each one and spread evenly over the top.

12. Now is the best part - torching!!! I attempted to do a creme brulee without a blowtorch (which was blog attempt 1) and I must say, if you want to make creme brulee's more than once, invest in a blowtorch, they make caramelising so much easier, and is far more enjoyable than watching everything burn under a grill!. Hold the torch a few centimetres from the sugar and gradually heat until it melts and turns golden brown. (Probably not the safest thing to do, blowtorch in one hand, camera in the other, but hey)

13. Once it has all caramelised, place back in the fridge for about 20 minutes to let the caramel form a hard crust. Then serve with a few more raspberries and enjoy!