Cambridge Burnt Cream: A Guest Post From Lazaro!

Trinity College Hall, Cambridge, 1838

I am very pleased to welcome Lazaro, of Lazaro Cooks to do my first guest post! Lazaro has single-handedly wrangled food bloggers, a proverbial 'herd of cats', all together through his wonderful blog. Now everyone is sharing their favorites through his generosity. I can't tell you how many new blogs I have found through him. He is also tireless in supporting other blogs and cheering us all on. For that I am so grateful as well as for the fact he is really passionate about sustainable, organic and seasonable food and has written about it. Living in Florida with his beloved "lady lawyer", his food tends to have that warm Florida feel with a Latin touch so he has really stretched to do his post for me... who has really been hitting England with a vengeance lately. I am so grateful he found this amazing dish and especially those Marco Pierre White clips... I know what I will be watching this weekend! So, after that introduction, HERE"S LAZARO!!!

Hello readers of Deana's awesome blog. She wows us weekly with her amazing love of history and her keen eye for photography. The first time I set eyes on her blog I instantly fell in love. I too share her passion for history, although I really do not blog about it, I mostly blog about my kitchen escapades. On June 30, 2010, Deana graced LC with her wonderful post, Tagliarini with Almond-Arugula Pesto & Meatballs.

It truly is an honor to be guest posting here. I have a very limited blogroll and Lostpastremembered is on it, that tells you how I feel about the work that Deana does here. In addition, she gracefully accepted my recommendation that she join us over at Blogcritics and has been enlightening us with her articles.

Today, I will be chatting about a well loved dessert that most call Creme Brulee. On LC, another talented cook Tanantha from I Just Love My Apron created a truly original tapioca-pearls-rose-water-vanilla-bean Pearls, Rosewater, Vanilla Infused, Creme Brulee at LC. I can only tell you that it is worth clicking over for.

The origins of the dessert known as Crème Brulee are shrouded in mystery. It is widely accepted that it is a French dish created by the French. Although, the Spanish insist that their version, Crema Catalana, is the original. With the origins theory in question, I am throwing the British into the mix as the creators of the sweet egg custard dessert.

Trinity Court, Cambridge

In the early 1600’s, at Trinity College in Cambridge, chefs made a baked egg custard and burnt it. This story reinforces one of my most cherished kitchen axioms "that there are no kitchen mistakes, only future success if you are paying attention.” When the chefs tried the burned custard they instantly fell in love with this “mistake.” Thus, Cambridge Burnt Cream was born.

On the record, the story that the dessert was invented at the college has no basis in fact. Dig a little deeper and you will find that the folks over at Trinity are quite certain that they created it. In fact, in the early days the chefs at Cambridge made a brand with the school’s crest that they burned onto every Cambridge Burnt Cream made.

The greatest and most influential British chef of all time, Marco Pierre White, went to Trinity to get the truth behind the rumors. It was done for television as part of Marco’s Great British Feast. And if I may recommend you watch the entire show, it can be seen on YouTUBE, it is an interesting look into a great cook’s journey to highlight the wonderful food of his homeland. Additionally, if you are into organic, sustainable food like me, Marco makes it a point to source the best local, natural ingredients indigenous to Britain that you can see on Marco Pierre White's Trip to Trinity College

Cambridge Burnt Cream

20 oz Heavy cream
5 tbs Caster sugar
5 Organic Free-Range Egg Yolks
2 Vanilla Beans - split in half
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
Cane Sugar

Preheat the oven to 250 F.

In a saucepan, bring the heavy cream and vanilla beans to just below the boil. DO NOT ALLOW THE CREAM TO BOIL.

In a glass bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and caster sugar until completely mixed. Add the ground cinnamon and nutmeg. Strain the cream through a fine mesh strainer. Slowly pour into the egg mixture, WHILE WHISKING, until all the cream is mixed in.

Cut a piece of cotton cloth to fit the bottom of a large deep sided baking tray. Place 4 small ramekins into the tray. Ladle the cream mixture into the ramekins. Pour boiling water into the tray until it is half way up the ramekins, creating a water bath.

Eggs are delicate and in my kitchen they are treated as such. So I like to cook them low and slow. Place the tray in the oven and cook for 50 minutes. Only allow the custard to JUST SET. DO NOT OVERCOOK!

Remove the ramekins and allow to cool at room temperature. Place the ramekins in the fridge for 4 hours.

When ready to glaze remove from fridge 30 minutes before torching. If you don't have a Cook's Torch, do not bother to try and make this dish. Here is a very good one.

Spoon a light coating of cane sugar and glaze. Repeat with a second coating of cane sugar and glaze again. Let sit for 5 mintues before eating.

Then all that is left is to take your spoon and cut in...

That's it for now...till we exchange a few words again...Peace!

In the spirit of musical blogging chairs, I have posted this week at MARX FOOD's blog! You can visit me there as I talk about Bartolomeo Scappi. His nearly 500 year-old cookbook made The Guardian list of best 50 cookbooks and his Filet with cherries, prunes, fennel pollen and spices will blow you away!