Crème Caramel Pots

As always with the recipes I publish, I am describing the food that we eat on a day to day basis. I make nothing specifically for the blog, you get what we get! Luckily we like a varied and seasonal fare. Today you are getting Crème Caramel Pots because we had too many eggs that were approaching the end of their useful life, and of course we didn’t want to have to throw them away. These caramel pots, apart from being delicious, are very quick and easy and require just a few minutes in the microwave. Yes, you’ve read right, no old fashioned wood fired stove this week, I am jumping into the modern age and using a microwave!

As I will explain later, this pudding can be served as a  “Caramel Pot” or as a “Crème Caramel”, so you get two different puddings for the price of one. A crème caramel is one of my favourite puddings and also one of my mother’s……….

When I was much, much younger I used to eat it by the pint. My mother used Bird’s instant packet mixes and she had a big bowl she would serve it in. She didn’t mess around with smaller “individual” servings, just one big bowl full for me. I sometimes think that whilst I was growing up, up being the operative word, I lived off Bird’s crème caramel and whatever cake that was available, amply covered in Bird’s instant custard!

My mother is far from immune to the stuff herself. She has been known to partake of large quantities of crème caramel too, particularly when in hotels on international holidays, where the meals are included in the price. It would seem to be a fairly common pudding in such establishments and my mother takes advantage of the fact in full. I often wondered why the hotels didn’t end up making her pay a surcharge……..

Oh, and according to my mother there is only one way to serve a crème caramel, in a bowl with abundant caramel sauce. It has to be a bowl as a flat plate makes it too difficult to spoon up all that caramel sauce. She will no doubt approve of how I have served it up in the photograph!

So there you have it, quick and easy multi-purpose pudding…… what more can one ask for?

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Crème Caramel Pots

Makes 4

Ingredients:

450ml Milk

Bought caramel sauce

3 Eggs

85g Vanilla sugar

2½ml Vanilla essence

Optional:

200ml Whipping cream

125g Caster sugar

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Method:

Measure the milk into a measuring jug and then heat in the microwave for 3 minutes at 700W.

Pour enough caramel sauce into the bottom of four drinking glasses to cover the base.

In a bowl, beat together the eggs, sugar and vanilla essence.

Beat in the hot milk.

Pour the milk and egg mixture back into the measuring jug then pour into the glasses over the back of a spoon so as not to disturb the layer of caramel sauce.

Bake in the microwave for 4 minutes at 350W followed by a further 3½ minutes at 700W. Remove and chill.

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At this point you need to decide whether you want caramel pots or crème caramel puddings. If you want the former, just whip up the cream, with a little sugar, and place decoratively on top of the pudding in the glass. Perhaps a light drizzle of caramel sauce and serve in the moulds with a long spoon.

If on the other hand you want crème caramels, then leave the pudding as it is until you are ready to serve. Just gently slide a knife around the glass to ensure the pudding isn’t stuck to the walls of the glass. Put a bowl over the glass then flip them both over. With a little shake the pudding should drop out of the glass into the bowl. You can serve decorated with a little cream, although my mother wouldn’t approve!

If you have no vanilla sugar, just add in a little vanilla essence. You can also make your own vanilla sugar. Clean then dry used vanilla pods then store in a jar with ordinary sugar. The pods will soon impart their delicious flavour to the sugar!

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Suggested Links:

As I mentioned above, I also love custard. Here are my recipes for pouring custard and a stiffer custard used to fill cakes or vanilla slices, another of my favourites!

Custard:

And here is a tart from back home that has a custard filling:

Manchester Tart:

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Key:

tsp – Teaspoon – 5ml

tbsp – Tablespoon – 15ml

Imperial to Metric Measurement:

1 oz – 28g

1 lb – 16 oz – 454g

1 gill – ¼ pint – 142ml

1 inch – 25mm

Common Flour Types:

Cake Flour

Gluten: 8% to 10%

Type: ES 70W

All-Purpose Flour / Plain Flour

Gluten: 8% to 11%

Type: DE 550 / FR 55 / IT 0 / ES 200W

Bread Flour / Strong Flour / Hard Flour

Gluten: 12% to 14% protein (gluten)

Type: DE 812 / FR 80 / IT 1 / ES 400W

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2017 Lincoln W. Betteridge