Cream Caramel - 05/04/2008

Some time ago Lam showed me his recipe book. I couldn't get the name of the book, but he showed me a page of cream caramel. I don't know why it is call cream caramel. It looks more like a pudding to me. Anyway the picture was so attractive, I copied down the recipe. After reading the methods, I found that the steps are pretty easy, and the materials are so common. This is what I copied from the recipe book:

Materials
Custard
500 ml milk
1 vanilla pod/ 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
3 eggs
100 g caster sugar

Caramel
100 g caster sugar
50 ml water

I was confused of what caster sugar is actually. I couldn't find it in Carrefour. So it delayed me from making it. But I found it in Tesco a month later. 500 g caster sugar at RM 1.98. Affordable to me. For the caramel part, I combined the sugar and water together and cooked them at low heat till they turned into brown colour. After that, the caramel was poured into moulds. I took two hours to cook the caramel. Stood still next to the fire and keep stirring was a boring job. I had to keep stirring or the sugar will hangus.

For the custard part, milk was poured into a saucepan. The book says "spilt the vanilla pod and use the tip of knife to scrape the seeds into milk". Till now I have no idea what a vanilla pod is. I just put a teaspoon of vanilla essence into the milk. Simpler... Then the milk was brought to boil. Same theory as the caramel, keep stirring or else the milk will hangus. Eggs and sugar were beaten till creamy. I had problem with this part. As I have to stir the milk, I have to beat the eggs at the same time. So using right hand to stir the milk, left hand was used to beat the egg with the machine which is used to make cake. I made my life simpler that way... I didnt understand the word creamy. But I beat the eggs for very long, maybe this is what it meant. The milk were added into the eggs after boiling and mixed well. Then the milk was strained into the mould with caramel. It must be done slowly as to prevent the caramel layer to be spoilt. And also be reminded to reduce the bubbles as much as possible.

The recipe asks me to "fill a baking pan with water to come at least half-way up to the sides of the moulds, and then bake the cream caramel in the baking pan for one to two hours just like water bath till the mixture sets. After that the mixture were chilled in refridgerator and ready to serve".

I had problem choosing my mould. If it were to use water bath at high temperature, my moulds will melt away and poisonous. My original plan was to use plastic moulds. But then later I change the moulds into metal rice bowls haha. Is this the biggest cream caramel in the world? And I did not bake my cream caramel. I steam them as if I am steaming fish. Because of the moulds, from using 10 moulds I ended up producing only 4 of them due to the difference in size of the mould.

My mama said that I will definitely fail. Her cruel words never demotivate me. I gave myself 80% for my cream caramel. 20% was deducted because the caramel part does not solidify at all. It is all liquid. Sad... And this cream caramel was TOO SWEET!!! Very sweet!!! Super duper ultra sweet!!! With the caramel it made it tera sweet!!! But it's my first try, and I like it so much hehe... Even my mama said it was nice enough as an amateur. 80% for the nice custard part hehe... Sorry I don't have enough specimen to distribute around for free sampling... Sorry Lam, sorry everyone hehe...

I am quite delighted that I made this dessert. Now I realize I have some potential in cooking and it may be my alternative if I fail my exams haha... After feeling sad in the afternoon that day, this made me feel much better. One thing that bothers me very much is after everything is done, I must clean and place back each and every utensils. I wish I have a personal assistant that day. This also shows how busy I am during study week for the final exams...




[Jino] - A man's not a man unless he knows how to shoot