Crème brûlée, The Right Way

So, last Monday, Brian and I went to Straits in San Francisco with our friends Dave and Nancy. Dave really wanted to take his girlfriend to an Asian fusion restaurant since it's her favorite type of food.

We had a wonderful meal: lemongrass beef, calamari with kaffir lime aioli, vermicelli noodles with prawns, to name a few dishes. And we had to save room for dessert, that was Nancy's call. Unfortunately, I didn't see anything that interested me on the dessert menu. Perhaps, on another night I may have felt different.

But Nancy saw the crème brûlée and had to go for it. The first thing that I noticed about the dessert was the unevenly melted sugar on top, as I looked closer through the dim lighting, I noticed that they were granules of turbinado sugar.

A cardinal rule of crème brûlée had been broken: It is not a brûlée unless there is caramelized sugar on top, and that means all the sugar. Dave had attempted to tap at the sugar to break it and his spoon went right into the custard.

With that in mind, a few tips about making that nice caramelized sugar topping.

1) The only way to do it is with a blow torch; you can do it with a broiler, but I find that using the blow torch gives you more control.

2) What sugar do you use? It depends on what works best for you. I prefer turbinado sugar only because I feel comfortable working with it. (Make sure that the sugar is melted. Since the granules are larger than other sugars, it will take a little longer to to melt down,) Some people use granulated sugar which is fine, but you make have to sprinkle on an extra layer to get a nice think caramelized top. (I've read of one technique where you use strained golden brown sugar.)

3) Applying sugar. With the blow torch, quickly torch the top of the crème brûlée not enough to burn it, but just enough to get it "wet." (It is a reaction when heat is applied to chilled custards.) Then with a spoon coat sugar onto the custard. Use the back of the spoon to help make the layer of sugar even.

4) Make sure the surface is covered well with sugar or the custard will burn. But do not coat too generously, or you will spend too much time melting the sugar and it ruins the chilled custard.

5) For safety, keep anything flameable away from the crème brûléee. (This includes your free hand that might be tempted to hang onto the ramekin.)

6) Torch it, but keep the torch moving so that you melt the sugar evenly.