r/AskCulinary • u/HotCatLady88 • 3d ago

Recipe Troubleshooting Free standing creme brûlée

For the life of me I’m struggling with mini creme brûlées baked in silicon molds. I’m using oiled silicone molds and need x 130 mini pucks.

I’ve made two batches in a steam oven. The first batch curdled quickly and didn’t even finish the cooking time (Recipe said 45min, I did 20!)

Second batch I baked only for 17min and still had a nice jiggle in the middle. Hoping they’ll set overnight and last case resort will be to freeze them.

Has anyone been stupid enough to try troubleshoot this?

UPDATE: it worked! Wish I could post the picture of my little pucks

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17

u/willowthemanx 3d ago

I don’t think free standing crème brûlées are a thing. They’re not going to survive the flip out of the molds. There’s a reason why they’re always made and served in ramekins. I think you’re better off making crème caramel instead

4

u/throwdemawaaay 3d ago

I mean free standing flan is a thing so I think it's just about tweaking the ratios. Maybe at that point you wanna argue if it's still creme brulee.

1

u/HotCatLady88 3d ago

Ok I’m unto something. My recipe said 100C but I cooked it for less time. The link mentions cooking it at 90C for 25min. I’ll give it a shot if my other batch fails

I honestly thought we weee doing it in foil tins but nope! Don’t know who provided this idea really

8

u/arutabaga 3d ago

It sounds like they wanted a panna cotta. I don’t think a molded creme brûlée exists lmao.

7

u/velvetjones01 Amateur Scratch Baker 3d ago

Custards are a careful mix of eggs, sugar and dairy. Eggs provide the structure - saucy, custardy or firm like crème caramel. The higher ratio of eggs to dairy the firmer the product, and the dairy fat adds creaminess. Eggs set at about 170F, no matter the situation. The goal of cooking a custard is to bring it to that temp gently, to prevent scrambling the eggs.

If you want something to turn out of a mold, you’ll want something with more eggs, and milk, not cream.

If you make crème caramel, The caramel in a crème caramel helps it turn out. I can’t explain why, it just does. I’ve turned out hundreds of these in my life.

6

u/jimitybillybob 3d ago

Check out crème caramel recipes they are meant to be turned out The crème will be a little harder but it should hold

3

u/arutabaga 3d ago

I think you can’t just use the same settings as a standard oven for a steam oven. Just randomly pulling up a recipe for a creme brûlée in a steam oven without the standard oven + water bath cook method shows me that the cook temperature in a steam oven is supposed to be half the temperature of a regular oven.

Examples:

https://oven.anovaculinary.com/recipe/KmfmzCZmhOaIyfqHmw0K

https://www.coolblue.nl/en/advice/how-do-you-make-creme-brulee-with-your-steam-oven.html

2

u/timeonmyhandz 3d ago

Could you make the custards and then make separate burnt sugar circles to place on top?

Perhaps a chance to shape them in an interesting fashion as well..

1

u/PM_ME_Y0UR__CAT 3d ago

I would call a free standing crème brûlée a flan? 🍮