Bistro-Worthy Crème Brûlée and Custards

We get the confusion—both desserts are baked custards that are turned out of their pans or molds and served upside down with a thinnish caramel running down the sides. While the line between the two can be vague, flan is usually richer and denser than crème caramel because the custard is made with more eggs and yolks, as well as some cream or evaporated or condensed milk. The good news is both are delicious!

While you certainly don’t want to serve undercooked eggs, if the protein molecules in the egg yolks are heated too much they tighten into clumps of curd, squeezing out the water and resulting in weepy, tough custards. Since timing is critical to many of these recipes, and judging doneness is not always easy, an instant-read thermometer provides peace of mind that you are taking the custard off the stovetop or out of the oven at just the right time.

The name of the game is gentle heat! As long as a custard is maintained at a relatively low temperature, the egg bonds remain loose and relaxed and the custard stays smooth. But once custard approaches the boiling point, the egg proteins fuse so tightly that they harden into lumps and squeeze out all the liquid that is held between them, making curdled custard. So keep an eye on that burner.

For most recipes where vanilla is a background player we reach for the bottle of extract; it has well-rounded flavor and enhances the taste of other ingredients, like chocolate. But for recipes where the flavor profile is super-simple and vanilla is the star of the show—like our crème brûlée—we opt to use beans as they provide a fuller aroma and more complex flavor than extract. Yes, they’re pricey, but the flavor is well worth it. And you can add the spent pods to a jar of sugar to make vanilla sugar—the gift that keeps on giving.