This version is anything but vanilla
Crème brûlée is the type of dessert most people order at restaurants but never enjoy at home. This is a shame, because it’s actually one of the simplest desserts you can make—a humble custard of cream, milk, eggs, and sugar that’s baked until just set and topped with deeply caramelized sugar. Once you nail the basic technique, crème brûlée is endlessly customizable. I’ve done fruity iterations in summer and pumpkin in autumn. Right now, when pretty much nothing seems to be in season, I like to flavor my custard with coffee and cardamom—a combination inspired by Syrian coffee—which makes even the grayest of winter days feel a tad more special.
While you could just use instant espresso, steeping warm cream and milk with real coffee grounds makes for a deeper, more aromatic coffee flavor—plus it allows time for a few cardamom pods to infuse their earthy fragrance. After about ten minutes of steeping, the pods and coffee grounds are strained out, leaving behind a frothy, latte-like mixture. While the coffee cream is still hot, it gets slowly whisked into egg yolks and sugar (a process called tempering, which prevents the eggs from curdling) before being baked in a low-heat oven until just set. You’ll have a lot of egg whites leftover—if you don’t have a use for them right away, you can freeze them for future pavlovas, macarons, and meringue-topped pies.
This recipe makes four individual crème brûlées, and in order for them to cook evenly (and avoid curdling), they need to be baked in a water bath. Hold your collective groan, please—a water bath really isn’t so complicated; the trickiest part is selecting your baking vessels. You’ll need four 4-ounce oven-safe ramekins for the custards and a larger baking dish to fill partway with water (an 8- or 9-inch square pan works great). To avoid spills (and burns), arrange the ramekins in the baking dish before filling them with custard, then transfer the pan to the oven. Once the pan is safely resting on the oven rack, you can pour in the water and carefully shut the door.
After a few hours of chilling, the custards are ready to be topped with sugar and brûléed to deep caramel perfection. While a mini blowtorch certainly brings more dramatic flair, your oven’s broiler will also produce the amber-colored, burnt-sugar topping you’re seeking. This brings us to the moment we’ve all been waiting for: cracking through the glassy tops and digging into the fragrant coffee custard below.