Coffee moment crème brûlée
A standard recipe? No way. The unctuous factor is of utmost importance in crème brûlée, and that’s achieved by a high proportion of egg yolks to other ingredients, as well as a long, slow exposure to heat. Also, a critical taste distinction is the result of maturing your mix, which simply means putting the raw ingredients together a day or two before you want to serve the creams.
You can use this as a standard dessert recipe, but I like to make these to serve after dessert, like a little mignardise. To do that, I cook these in smaller-portioned espresso cups, and present this in place of the standard after-meal coffee. Or I can have them on hand as a little pause café pick-me-up in the afternoon for when a friend stops by.
ingredients:
7 egg yolks
⅓ cup turbinado sugar (also called raw sugar)
1 ¼ cup cream
1 cup milk
3 tsp. ground coffee beans (the very same powder you’d put in a coffee maker)
3-4 tsp. turbinado sugar (for the top of your creams)
how to make it:
A day or two before you want to eat these delicacies, make the mix. Begin by heating the milk and cream together in a saucepan over medium heat. When they have reached a boil, turn off the heat, add the ground coffee, and cover the pan. Let the coffee infuse the liquids for about ten minutes, then pour through a fine-meshed strainer. Let the milk and cream cool completely.
In a medium bowl, whisk together vigorously the egg yolks and the sugar for about three minutes, making sure to push stray sugar grains down from the sides of the bowl. Add in the cream and strained milk, and whisk thoroughly. If you’re a purist, strain this mixture again into a refrigerator container – this will help eliminate any stray sugar lumps and also gets rid of bubbles. Cover tightly and leave to mature in the fridge overnight.
Preheat the oven to 250° F. Making sure to have hot water at the ready, fill your ramekins or cups to about 1/8 to a quarter-inch from the top rim, and place them in a baking pan with at least 2-inch sides, staggering them so the water will be able to circulate freely and heat the cups evenly. To avoid spillage, I usually set the pan with the ramekins in the oven before pouring in the water to about three-fourths of the way up the sides. Bake for about 1 ½ hours, or until the creams are still a tiny bit jiggly in the center. Remove from the oven, let cool, and refrigerate for at least two hours. Just before serving, sprinkle the tops of the creams with sugar, and pass them under a pre-heated broiler, just until the sugar is melted and begins to caramelize – only a few seconds. (This is usually done with a small kitchen blow torch, but if you don’t have one, the broiler works fine.) Serve immediately: what makes a perfect crème brûlée is the contrast in temperature between the very cold cream lying underneath the hot burnt sugar.
makes 5 creams in standard ramekins, or about 8 small creams, depending on your cups
Seeing today
You could hardly begin to count the hours people spend in Paris lingering over coffee and ruminating their morning thoughts in a public place. In one of my common cafés, a courtesy smile passes over current patrons’ mouths as other sleepy customers push open the café’s glass door and let in the green-smelling gust usually coming off the square Gardette in the 11th arrondissement. The same question persists: how long can I make one tiny cup of coffee last while I prepare the day’s schedule? Longer, of course, if it’s a café américain: watered-down lavasse or sock juice, as they call it here. I’m still mastering the technique of a happy temperature medium, prolonging the moment when I first raise the steaming cup to my lips, but on the other hand, repeating the movement often enough to avoid tipping frigid dregs into my mouth.Some Parisians go in for cafédomancie, or reading the future in the dregs at the bottom of their cup. Their insight is inspired by whatever shapes they see when they’ve turned their cup onto a plate and the dregs have dripped down onto it: circles signify money – apparently not much if those circles are supposed to represent coins – and a fish indicates long-lasting love, and so on. Other Parisians prefer to consult a professional healer to find answers. Sometimes when I step out of the metro I find a little paper has made its way into my hand, one which advertises these medium and healing services, usually performed by someone of African descent. Bones, sticks, beads, shells: all are divining tools that help make predictions for health and happiness.
My insight isn’t in bones or dregs: it mostly strikes during my coffee moment, when I’m reflecting on the day ahead, or on the meaning of a dream that woke me so suddenly on a particular morning. If staring at black coffee sludge provides some of my friends with inspiration for the day’s work, so be it – maybe I’ll use their secrets one day. But by the time I’ve reached the dregs, I’ve sipped slowly enough to have had my inspiring moment, and it’s time to stand, stretch, and pack up the rolling papers, pens, and other belongings that have scattered around the table. I give a little half-kick, half-push to slide in my chair, and with a bonne journeé and a nod to the café owner, I head out into the blinding sun.
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