March 30, 2020

Instant Pot Creme Brûlée

So, my oven kicked the bucket… helped along its way thanks to the utility company. One of the things I love to do is bake. It’s a wonderful outlet for creativity and stress relief and being indoors (I’m not complaining!) during this time would have been eased greatly by my being able to whip something up and throw in the oven to enjoy later.

Rather than give up until I can get my oven fixed or barring that, get a brand new one, I’ve been scouring the web for stove top baking recipes. I’ve found some that I do plan to try out, but yesterday, I wasn’t in the mood for experimentation. I wanted a quick and easy dessert to round out our Sunday meal. I thought about one of my faves – creme brûlée – and wondered if it could be done via my trusty instant pot. And hurrah, hurrah! It can!

The key really is knowing the right amount of time to cook it in the pot. By cooking it in the instant pot, there is no need to heat up the custard, temper eggs nor any of that other technical stuff that leads to melt in your mouth goodness. This method produces an arguably just as good result, with less fuss. The recipe stays the same, so easy peasy, right?

Basic creme brûlée like the one I made yesterday, calls for four simple ingredients:
– Cream
– Eggs – the yolks in particular
– Sugar
– Vanila extract/ vanilla paste

So, what’s the formula? Very loosely, I’d say for each person you want to serve, use one egg yolk. For every egg yolk, use 1/8 cup of sugar. You do not want it too sweet as you’ll have the burnt sugar on top as well. The sugar in the custard really will be to taste. I’ve tried this up to six servings and it worked fine each time. I’ve never pushed it to eight, well because I don’t have eight ramekins nor a dish large and shallow enough to bake the entire custard mixture in for that many people.

So, here’s the loose recipe:

Print Recipe

Instant Pot Creme Brûlée

Prep Time10

Cook Time25

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: French

Servings: 4 people

Calories: 313kcal

Equipment

Instant pot
Bowls
Measuring spoons and cups
Whisk
Ramekins
FIne mesh strainer

Ingredients

2 cups heavy cream cold
4 large egg yolks room temperature
1/2 cup granlated sugar plus more for the brulée part
1 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste

Instructions

Add the eggs and sugar to a medium sized bow.
Beat until well combined.
Add the cream a little at a time until the sugar is dissolved and everything is well mixed.
Add the vanilla extract/ paste and beat again until well incorporated.
Using the fine mesh, pour into ramekins (to get rid of excess foam and any little lumps) and seal with foil.
Put the liner into the instant pot and insert the trivet. Add one cup of water to the liner and then lower the filled ramekins into the pot. Side note, as you can see in my pic, I should have just stacked my fourth ramekin on top of the three but I chose to do that one separately.
Set the pressure to low and cook for ten minutes. Once done, follow your pressure cooker's instructions and carefully, manually release the pressure. Once the pin drops and it is safe to open, remove the lid and place the cooked custard on a rack to cool before moving to the refrigerator to chill completely. There may be a very slight jiggle to the custard when first out of the pot. This is fine, but it should not be watery or too jiggly.
Once cooled completely (after four hours to overnight), sprinkle with a thin layer of sugar and use a kitchen safe brûlée torch to burn the sugar. Place back in the fridge to firm up again for a few minutes.
When ready to eat, crack that crunchy layer and enjoy!