An Eggageration of Eggs – Trying my hand at Creme Brulee

We have 3 chickens and 3 ducks. We average about 2 eggs per day. Now that may not seem like a lot, but you try eating over a dozen eggs per week, every week. And I have to say, I am rather tired of omelettes. So, I am on the search for something new to do with our eggs.

My first new attempt has been Coffee-Caramel Creme Brulee, a recipe I found on Bon Apetit when I was looking for additional uses for coffee. So two birds with one stone, as it were.  Now I haven’t made Crème Brulee before as it seems rather fiddly. Actually, I think anything involving a bain-marie makes it feel more complicated than I generally might be interested in.  However, needs must and this recipe appealed.

The warm water in a roasting pan is not really that difficult. No, it was turning the sugar into caramel that was actually the most time consuming part, and that was all of 11 minutes.  I did slightly over do it and it lumped into candy so I had to take time to dissolve it back into the crème with lots of stirring. But I got there in the end.

But what has prompted me to write this blog is the coffee bit. In this recipe you take coffee beans and you heat them in crème, creating a coffee flavoured crème. Then you are supposed to throw away the beans.

Now they have a lovely coating of crème, and I am definitely of the no waste principle, so I decided to try my hand at chocolate covered coffee beans ~ and see if the crème possibly adds anything to it.

Turns out chocolate covered coffee beans are simple, really simple.

Now its funny, I baulk at a bain-marie but have no issue with a double boiler (or in my case a glass bowl over a simmering pan of hot water) and melting chocolate. I find it strangely therapeutic. Once the chocolate is melted (and I used a single bar of dark 70% chocolate), you simply add the roasted coffee beans, swish them around until covered and then scop them out and lay on sheet of baking/waxed paper. Let the chocolate cool (refrigerate if you are in a hurry or its a hot day) and there you have them.

So both desserts worked, one definitely more fiddly than the other, but still I would do both again – though I may experiment with the flavouring in the Crème Brulee. I once had a balsamic Crème Brulee that was out of this world…