Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Gordon Ramsey's Perfect Creme Brulee



The girls are back at school after the two week school break, the apartment is so quiet you could hear a pin drop. I suddenly feel very tired. Despite this, I have a lot of housework to catch up on, so there’s no time to sit down and feel sorry for myself. These two weeks have been great, I tried my best to keep up with my 13 and 11 year olds during the day, and when they finally get to bed at 9pm, I relax on my couch and ‘attempt’ to catch up with my Hong Kong and Korean serials, I am told however, that 10 minutes later, I am snoring, mouth wide open, and salivating. Hardly adorable looking and much less, sexy.






Ming and I have been married for 15 years this April, so, in case you’re wondering.. I’ve gone past being ‘worried’ about being caught in unattractive situations. There are much worse situations, let me tell you, but we shall not delve into them just yet, after all, I’ve only known you guys for barely six months!



On the 12th of this month, I celebrated my 39th birthday with family and a handful of close friends – it was nice, we had a ten-course banquet dinner at Golden Century, an up-market Chinese restaurant in Northbridge. My favourite dish was the ‘Lobster Noodles in Superior Stock’. Sorry, I had intended to post some photos; unfortunately half of them were blurred for some reason. Maybe it was the bad lighting, or it could be that my hands were shaky from being too hungry!





After the dinner, we came back to my place and had coffee and Birthday cake, a chocolate truffle cake from Francois’- the ONLY cake I ever bother to buy. My Birthday present from Ming and the girls will be arriving shortly, the Nikon SLR- don’t ask me the model, I’m really bad at remembering these things.
Today, I’m posting Gordon Ramsey’s ‘Perfect Crème Brulee’- I made this a couple or so weeks back for dessert when we had some friends visiting from Bali. The only thing I would add is that the dessert needed half an hour in the oven instead of the 10-15 minutes specified. A ‘misprint’ maybe? You be the judge.













GORDON RAMSEY’S PERFECT CRÈME BRULEE
Serves 4

300ml double cream
130ml milk
40g vanilla sugar
4 egg yolks
Vanilla sugar to sprinkle for caramel topping

Heat the milk and cream until just about to boil, stirring in I dessertspoon of vanilla sugar and allow to cool. Lightly whisk together the remaining sugar and the yolks. Reheat the cream until about to boil then pour into the egg and sugar and whisk. Strain into a jug and pour into the ramekin dishes.

Fill a large roasting tin half full of boiling water, put the ramekins in and bake at 180C for 10-15 minutes until just set. Allow to cool and place in the fridge until required. Dust the top of the crème brulee with a little vanilla sugar and then use a blowtorch to caramelise the sugar.