Cooking with tea - Tea Crème Brûlée

August 20, 2016

This tea crème brulee takes this classic dessert to the next level.

This treat is tea and dessert in one. It’s easy to make, you can cook it in advance and it’s guaranteed to make a great impression. You can almost hear the caramelised sugar cracking to reveal the tea infused creaminess! You can even make it even if you don’t have a fancy kitchen blow torch.

Tea recipe – Dark Roast Sumatra tea crème brulee

Preparation – 5 minutes ProductPage_Jar with tea leaves_Oolong_DarkRoastSumatra

Cooking – 40 minutes

What you’ll need

2 cups of full fat cream
1 tbsp vanilla bean paste
3 tbsp Cup Above Tea Dark Roast Sumatra
5 whole egg yolks
¾ cup sugar
¼ cup brown sugar for topping
20 x Blueberries (or garnish of your choice)

Method

Preheat your oven to 150 degrees Celsius

Beat the egg yolks, ¾ cup of sugar and vanilla bean paste until the mixture is thick, creamy and pale yellow in colour.

Add the loose leaf tea into a fine mesh infuser basket or ball. Set aside.

Pour the cream into a saucepan and stir over low, slow heat for around 10 minutes or until simmering/ Avoid heating the cream to boiling point.

You’ll need two hands for this step. Take your tea infuser basket or ball and sit it in the heating cream mixture. If using an infuser ball, hold it on the handle and dip it under the top of the cream swirling it around the pan slowly. If using an infuser basket you can either use your hand – being careful not to burn yourself on the hot surface, or lower the basket in with a set of kitchen tongs. Wiggle the basket a little to help extract the full flavour from the leaves. The wiggling motion will allow the leaves to fully unfurl.

When the cream starts to simmer take it off the heat and remove the tea leaves.

Very slowly, stir the cream into the egg yolk mixture you prepared previously, then beat on low speed until combined. Pour the mixture into ramekins and place the ramekins into a high edge baking tray.

Add boiling water to the baking tray to surround the ramekins, being careful not to get any water in the mixture. Continue to add water until it’s half-way up the edge of the ramekin dishes. Carefully transfer to the oven and bake for 30 minutes.

Remove from oven and cool. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Once the custards have cooled, preheat your grill to high. Sift the brown sugar evenly over the tops of each custard.

Cook under the grill for 1-2 minutes or until the sugar starts to bubble and caramelise. Make sure you watch them carefully so they don’t burn. If you have a brulee torch, you can use it instead of placing under the grill.

Remove the ramekins from the oven and serve with a pot of Cup Above Tea Dark Roast Sumatra on the side. Garnish your brulees with a few blueberries – the flavour works beautifully with the Dark roast Sumatran tea, otherwise, get creative and garnish however your heart desires! Bon appetite.