Salted Caramel Pots de Creme

Oh my word. Hi. Remember me? I feel so awkward all of a sudden!! Why do I feel like that? I feel like I've abandoned all of you and is there anybody reading this right now? Whatever. HIIIIIII. I've missed you all. As many (or all) of you know, I had a baby a little over a year ago. And he's the greatest of all time. But he has kept me very busy! And then I started a new job two months ago and that's been a little nuts adjusting to not only life with a baby but life as a working mom (nothing can prepare you for that. Nothing. How am I alive right now?). Today though, at work, one of my new and awesome co-workers (one of the many new and awesome co-workers I currently have) sent an email about a recipe exchange and my brain just about exploded with all the recipes that I want to share. And then I thought to myself, "Self, why are you hoarding all your recipes and only thinking about sharing them with your co-workers? Why not get back into blog land??" So, here I am. I have not been taking many pictures lately so the recipe that I'm about to share is from this summer when I had a few of my oldest friends over and it's also the dish that I made for my second Masterchef audition *humblebrag*

Without further adieu....

SALTED CARAMEL POTS DE CREME

As per usual, this is a recipe I discovered in one of my Food Network magazines. Why haven't you signed up for that yet??? Quit wasting time. Go now. ANYway, when I got my invite to the Masterchef audition (in the summer of 2014.... yeah it's been a while since my horrendously awkward interview with Ben Miljure from CTV), I knew I had to take something that was already cooked (part of the requirements for the first round of auditions) and I didn't want to spend forever plating something since we only got three minutes. I had served a dessert the year before and wasn't really planning on doing one again but I made a bunch of test recipes and I always kept coming back to dessert. And then I found this little diddie. My tag line for this blog should really be, "Shit your pants good". Because yet again, that's how good this recipe is. The first time I made it, I shared it with some friends and family and my dad hit the nail on the head when he said that you can actually taste more flavours the longer it's in your mouth. Which won't be very long, actually. It's rich and sweet and smooth and has a wonderful depth of flavour. I'm probably not making any sense, anymore. Mom brain is the worst, just so you know.

Ingredients:

2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup sugar
1 oz. milk chocolate, finely chopped
6 large egg yolks

Okay so first, take a lorazepam. There are a few anxiety attacks in this recipe, but it's worth it I SWEAR I WOULD NEVER LIE TO YOU. Next, preheat your oven to 325 F. Then heat the heavy cream, milk, vanilla extract and salt in a sauce pan until just starting to bubble around the edges. DO NOT, I mean DO NOT let this mixture come to a hard boil. Seriously, just bubbling and warm enough so that it's uncomfortable for your finger to be in there (WHATEVER DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT). Take off the heat and cover to keep warm. Maybe even keep it on very low heat so that it's still hot-ish because you'll need it to be hot-ish a little later.

Next combine the sugar and 1/4 cup water and stir until the sugar dissolves. Cook, swirling the pan a few times but not stirring, for about 10 minutes or until it's a nice amber colour. Waiting for this will be your first anxiety attack. You don't want it to get too dark because then it will taste burnt. But this will change colour very quickly all of a sudden so keep your head on a swivel. Brush any sugar crystals that have accumulated on the side of the pan with a wet pastry brush as you go along. Once it gets to approximately this colour...

Remove from heat and let cool ever so slightly. This is next stage will be your second anxiety attack (you have been warned) and this is also where the temperatures of the mixtures will need to be bang on. A few times when I've added the milk to the caramel, the caramel has seized up like a frickin brick (because the milk mixture is too cold in comparison to the BOILING MOLTEN LAVA that is the caramel). If that happens to you, it can be remedied by just putting it all back on low heat for a while and whisking until you can't feel any of the sticky caramel on the bottom of the pan. When you add the milk to the caramel, it will bubble up like a little bitch so you need to watch it. Don't multi-task during this stage, even though I know you're all strong, powerful women (and men?), like Beyonce.

Next add the chocolate, and whisk until smooth. Okay, that part's over.

Now, whisk your egg yolks - and if you've never heard of the term "tempering" in regards to cooking, look that shit up as that's the concept we're going to be following - and whisk about half of the milk/caramel mixture into the egg yolks. Add the next half and whisk until smooth. Strain through a fine mesh sieve (to get any undissolved eggy bits out) into a big measuring cup or bowl that you can easily pour liquid out of.

Okay, so now you're gonna want to get your ramekins ready. The original recipe calls for six 6 oz ramekins, but I have eight 4 oz ones. So. That'll do if that's also all you have. Or whatever. Do what you want, I don't know your life. Fill the ramekins with the caramel shit (I'm tired of the word "mixture") and place them in a large baking dish (I use a glass 9x13). Once they're all in there nice and cozy, fill the large baking dish with hot water until it reaches about half way up the ramekins. Cover the dish with foil and then bake for about 45-50 minutes until the pots de creme are set around the edges but still jiggly in the middle (like a cheesecake).

Remove the ramekins from the baking dish (THIS WILL BE THE BIGGEST ANXIETY ATTACK YET - I have not yet figured out how to take them out without burning my hand off because of not being able to avoid the hot water or almost dropping them all over the frickin place because my tongs aren't grippy enough) and set them aside to cool to room temperature. Cover each ramekin with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least 2 hours or overnight.

When you serve these little pots of rainbow and unicorns and happiness, sprinkle a little bit of sea salt on top and then make that day an annual holiday in your household because you will remember that day forever as the day the universe just gave you the most wonderful gift of all time. And all of your anxiety will be forgotten.

I'm so psyched to be back at it! Thanks for reading, errbody.

Xoxo

Ash

PS. This is my stove top after I added the caramel and milk together.

Let's be real, for a second. Disasters happen to all of us.