Okay, finally, one picture taken with a DSLR camera. BE-U-TI-FUL! Unfortunately I also downloaded it from facebook, so the quality was lowered. Oh well. This is the one picture in this blog post, so if that's all you're here for then you can move on to checking your e-mail or facebooking. But I'm also going to add the recipe as well as tell you about a great volunteer chef experience I had a couple weeks ago!
I made this creme brulee just for fun. I added a little bit of cinnamon and put some blueberries on the bottom of the ramekin for some freshness and added sweetness. And also added a little bit of raspberry sauce on top for tartness. Apparently it was too tart according to my friends. Haha, I just told them to scrape it off.
Best part? Burning sugar, duh! I bought this really TINY torch, if you could even call it that. But it did its job and it was very very fun! I can't wait to make creme brulee again!
Two Saturdays ago, I volunteered at a event with the purpose of raising money for the UCSD Moore's cancer center. There were a lot of chefs from various restaurants. It was really fun. After the event I kind of put down a stream of consciousness about it, so I will post it here:
Gala Celebrity Chef Food Adventure!
Scott and I arrived at the Sheraton Hotel and Marina, had a bit of a parking issue, ended up parking in a dirt lot, whee! We changed in the car and headed over. We were super early, so we walked around a bit. It's a really nice hotel. Got settled, everyone else showed up and they gave us our chef’s name and our wine card.
We headed into the ballroom and met our chefs. Chris Karestner? I believe…and his sous chef Tre. They were pretty cool, Tre was nice. I chatted with them a bit about culinary school and food and stuff. I regret not initiating conversation more, oh well. It was fun serving wine to middle aged white rich people, who kind of knew what they were talking about. Haha one guy totally owned me about the year, I was told 2007, but the bottle said 2008, and he repeated himself maybe three times ‘it says 2008, 2008" *shooting me a disapproving look in the process. Thank you for being so informative about it, jerk...But overall, fun, hectic times.
Afterwards all the volunteers ran around trying everyone’s stuff. Wish I could’ve had more but everyone was cleaning up. I got to try a bit of duck with balsamic reduction (not full dish). One I really enjoyed was small heirloom tomatoes, wild arugula cream, microgreens and smoked sturgeon. Really good. I liked my chef’s too, creamy polenta, lamb sausage, and roasted tomato and fennel salad. And my favorite one was diver scallop ceviche, guacamole panna cotta (what the freak?), caramel corn bits, lemon jicama, and fresh orange pieces. Really pretty, good texture contrast, and flavor combination. This plate was from Graham Elliot's restaurant...Wait what? Graham Elliot!! We talked for a while with the pastry chef from Graham Elliot’s restaurant…cuhrazy…his name was Greg Gree (I think?) He gave us some macaron tips and showed us some pictures of the things he has eaten and made. Gosh, they sounded so good and looked A-mazing! He told me to go to pastry school…hehe. That made my night!
Then we had dinner, some salad, fruit, teriyaki chicken, rice, stir fried vegetables, pasta, all well made, but nothing innovative like what we just ate...BUT THEN, we went to the Grand Ballroom (ballin’! haha get it?) and got to eat the dessert that the guests were having! YES! Hazelnut chocolate wafer, milk chocolate mousse, and dark chocolate ganache at top (just a speculation), whipped cream, strawberry half, blackberry, raspberry, 4 blueberries, pistachio gelato with raspberry-chocolate sauce, and chocolate sauce for decoration. It was freaking delicious and huge! It was a good night!
If you got this far, I congratulate you! and thank you for caring enough (or being bored enough) to read about my life's adventures (what few there are). Thank you!
Cinnamon-Blueberry Creme Brulee
-2 cups heavy cream
-4 egg yolks
-1/2 cup sugar
-1 tsp vanilla extract
-1 tsp cinnamon
-Fresh blueberries, washed and drained
6 four oz. ramekins
Boiling water
Cake pan
1. Place blueberries on the bottom of each ramekin, don't overcrowd, leave a little space around each blueberry around 6-8 blueberries. Preheat oven to 300 F.
2. Bring the heavy cream to a boil in a small to medium saucepan. Until bubbles appear around the sides, make sure it doesn't boil over! Take it off the heat and add in the vanilla extract.
3. Just before you add the cream, whisk the egg yolks, sugar, and cinnamon together in a heat safe bowl. Slowly add the cream in a constant stream while whisking gently until about half has been added.
4. Add the egg yolk-cream mixture back into the saucepan (still off the heat). Combine gently. Strain the mixture in a fine mesh sieve into a liquid measuring cup for easy pouring.
5. Add evenly to each ramekin, not to the top.
6. Place ramekins in the cake pan, not touching, and slowly add boiling water until halfway up the ramekins (careful not to get water into the custards). Carefully place in the oven on the middle rack. Bake for 30-40 minutes until the sides are pretty much set but centers are still jiggly.
7. Cool COMPLETELY, it will help them set up, then place in the fridge for at least 4 hours.
8. Take out the creme brulees and sprinkle about a teaspoon of sugar evenly over each custard. Burn away! I hear this also works in the broiler. (I haven't done it, but this is how I would do it) Set the oven to broil and put the ramekins on the top rack with the sugar for 1-2 minutes (watch it like a hawk you do NOT want it to burn)
9. ENJOY!
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