Jasmine Tea Crème Brulée and the pursuit of laziness

4) You might be keeping the Kitchenaid in storage but if it meant you’d have to tear your arms off whipping the shit out of your egg whites then what’s the point? The most ideal lazy recipe, requires little more than a stir, fold or a light whisk. 

5) Lots of steps usually equals lots of bowls (refer to point 3) so the less methods you have to do, the better.

6) The same can be said of ingredients. The less there are, the less time you will spend foraging for them and measuring it all.

With that said and done, (I think this was the point to all that incessant rambling!), one of my favourite lazy recipes is a crème brulée. It’s the most relaxing thing I can make in the kitchen and it’s probably the number one culprit behind my obscene egg white collection (last count 64 whites!). But to make this lazy friendly, you’ll need an egg separator and a butane blowtorch. Not only is it fun to burn sugar but it cuts down on time and effort. And the egg separator allows me to separate 6 eggs in less than 45 seconds without worrying about shattering egg shells or breaking up the yolks.

Obviously everybody is different, so what’s lazy to me, would probably be irritating to another. So don’t start lynching me and saying, “pfft, brulee! How crazy are you woman?!”.

Now normally, you’d chill a cooked brulee before serving but if I had a bad craving, I’d happily skip this (it doesn’t take long to cool down at room temperature in winter anyway). In any case, I confess – I like my brulees warm.

Tonight’s number is flavoured with jasmine tea. I love tea flavoured desserts and in this case, the jasmine tea gives it the most beautifully subtle fragrance. You could substitute with green, black or earl grey tea but just bear in mind that ‘western’ teas can be a lot stronger so you’ll have to adjust the brewing time. I like it on its own but if you want to fancy it up, you can take a leaf out of Jacques Reymond and serve it with lychees that has been macerated with sugar syrup and spices. But would that revoke its lazy status? Allow me to ponder that as I eat…

Jasmine Tea Creme Brulee 

100ml milk
220ml pouring cream (35% fat)
3 bags of jasmine tea (adjust depending on how strong you like it)
6 eggs separated
70g caster sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
demerara sugar (or caster sugar if unavailable)

Method

Preheat oven to 140°C. In a pot, gently bring the milk, cream and tea bags to a boil and allow to brew for around 10 minutes (shorter if using a stronger tea). While the cream is on the heat, separate your eggs (egg separator for the win!), grab the sugar and dump it into the yolks (a little over 1/4 Aussie cup if you’re too lazy to take out your scales). Give it a whisk until it’s combined.

Now pop a kettle of water on. Take out the tea bags, add the vanilla and pour in a slow and steady stream into the egg mix, whisking constantly to prevent it from cooking (note – if you squeeze the teabags into the milk, you’ll get a more intense flavour but will make your brulee an odd shade of grey).

Divide mixture into 4 ramekins and place in a baking tray. Pour the freshly boiled water from your kettle into your baking tray slowly until the water comes up halfway on the ramekins. Bake for 15-25 minutes depending on how flat your ramekins are. The middle should have the slightest of quiver when it’s ready.

Take the ramekins out of the water and allow to cool for at least 20 minutes. If you’re not serving straight away, stick it in the fridge.

Sprinkle a light, even layer of sugar and grab the blowtorch and go crazy until you have the most gorgeous toffeed coating.

Print the recipe here!

Recipe adapted from Cuisine du Temps by Jacques Reymond