Last week I promised to share the recipe for my favorite way to use pumpkin pie flavored sugar, which makes a great edible gift. I love creme brulee because it’s rich and creamy with a crisp top crust that shatters into lovely bits of caramelized sugary goodness. When I want a decadent dessert, it’s the first thing that comes to mind. Around the holidays, I get pumpkin pie at all sorts of gatherings, so at home I love to do a twist and make pumpkin pie creme brulee. It’s less work than an actual pie but just as satisfying.

Creme brulee is a contrast in textures that has two key components.  The first is a custard, made with egg yolks, creme and sugar, with the option of additional ingredients.  The second component is the top crust, sugar that’s melted and then allowed to harden.  This crust appears to be a barrier between you and the silky custard below, but one satisfying whack with your spoon is all it takes to open up a world of velvety indulgence.

Professional chefs us a special torch to make the top crust, but those of us at home can get equally satisfying results with the use of the broiler setting on our oven.  It just takes a watchful eye to make sure you don’t burn your crust (yes, voice of experience speaking!).  The good news is, if you accidentally let it burn then once it hardens you can break it up, scoop it off and try again!

For the custard portion of the creme brulee, I have plenty of egg yolks in my fridge from making about 10 batches of frosting for this year’s gingerbread competition (voting open until December 26!).  The yolks are gently tempered with the hot cream to ensure that they don’t curdle, a really depressing reaction that can’t be reversed.  I walk you through the process in the recipe, but if you’re nervous, you can check out my post on how to temper eggs.

The recipe may look long, but don’t be scared away!  I made another batch last night and had it in the oven in 5 minutes.  Then another five minutes for the top crust after they’d cooled.  My husband and one of our Chinese boys saw how easy it was and asked me to teach them next time!

Have you made creme brulee before?  Any additional tips to share with readers who haven’t?

I’m sure someone somewhere in the world has made pumpkin pie flavored sugar, but I haven’t seen it so I claim it as my own!  The sugar is mixed with ground cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger and allspice to give that signature holiday flavor.  You can use it in your holiday baking, or stir it into hot wine for a delicious holiday cocktail.  My absolute favorite way to use it though is in my pumpkin pie creme brulee.  You can see it peeking out of the top corner of the photo.  That recipe’s coming next, I promise! Read more

When it comes to edible gift giving, I think that vanilla sugar is the most popular of the flavored sugars.  In my post about flavored sugar I talk about how I started making it as a way to use empty vanilla bean pods.  While it’s a great way to make vanilla beans more cost efficient, you can also use all the little beans inside the pod which I explain in the recipe.  I use clean, dry fingers to break up the beans in the sugar.  But if you’ve used the tiny vanilla beans for something else, feel free to just stick the pod in the sugar. Read more

It doesn’t get much easier than this friends.  A little sugar, a little orange zest, a little jar.  It all comes together to make a sweet gift for the holidays that’s always appreciated.  You can give it in small bottles like the picture, with a tag recommending what to sprinkle it on:
-pancakes or French toast
-shortbread or sugar cookies
-cheesecake
-chocolate pudding Read more

Although I have been switching our family to using sucanat in place of refined sugar, there’s a small happy spot in my heart that sucanat hasn’t filled; the flavored sugar spot.  There’s something about flavored sugar that speaks to me on so many levels.  They speak to the freakishly frugal part of me, to the gourmet loving refined palette part of me, and to the part of me that loves DIY projects and secretly wishes I was a pioneer of old.  Flavored sugars take about five minutes of work and make a fantastic gift that’s cheap and easy. Read more