The EASIEST Creme Brûlée you will EVER make!  Instant Pot Recipe

Let me start off by saying I LOVE CREME BRULEE! I do!  I am not a huge dessert person.  But I do love my custards.  Really, any kind of custardy dessert wins me over every time.  When we go out to restaurants, I NEVER want to look at the dessert menu…..unless there’s creme brûlée on it!  This is pretty much how the conversation goes, “I don’t really want dessert and I’m pretty full.  But, if you want, I’ll share a creme brûlée with you…..”  Almost every time, Luis obliges.  We get the creme brûlée and I eat 95% of it.  🙂

Custard dishes have always been too scary for me to make at home.  The water bath, the foil, wrapping them just the right way, the cooking time and consistency.  Ahhhh there’s so many things to worry about.  I never did it because of the likelihood of something going terribly wrong.

Well, let me tell you…..I am forever changed!  I’m not kidding you.  I made creme brûlée and it was AWESOME!  The texture (which is the most important thing in my book) was PERFECT!  It tasted great and the I even got the caramelized sugar to crack when I hit it with my spoon.  To say this was a proud moment was an understatement.

I can’t believe how easy it was to make in the Instant Pot.  There was no concern over how much water to use, will the water spill, did I wrap the foil the right way, is it done yet?, are they cooking?   Since they only took 6 minutes to cook plus the 10 minutes to release the pressure, I hardly had anytime to think about what could be going wrong inside the pot.  Before I knew it, they were done!

Admittedly so, I was NERVOUS to take off the foil.  I was sure that I was going to scrambled eggs.  But, I didn’t!  OMG!  They were so smooth and beautiful. My little creme brûlées were perfect!

Tips for this recipe:

1.If you are not going to be eating all of your ramekins of creme brûlée right away, you can keep them in the refrigerator for a few days.  Just be sure that you WAIT until you are ready to serve to put the sugar on the top.  I got super excited to torch all of the sugar so I did all 6 at once.  We saved 3 for the next day.  But, when we went to eat them, the melted sugar was soggy and really watery.  I had to pour the moisture off of the the top and redo the sugar.  I was still able to save them, but it would have been so much easier if I had just waited to do the sugar.

2.Don’t be afraid to top with plenty of sugar.  Initially, I spooned some sugar on the top, swirled it around and then poured off the extra.  It was really hard to caramelize the sugar because there just simply was not enough!  Once I added more sugar, it melted beautifully!

3.DO NOT whisk your ingredients.  If you add air into the mixture, the texture of your creme brûlée will be more like scrambled eggs and less like a silky smooth custard.  I used a whisk, simply because it does a nice job of scraping the ingredients from the bowl but I did not add any air.

4.Pyrex bowls are not recommended for use in pressure cookers.  If you have newer pyrex, they are likely to explode.  The older pyrex (like I used) had a different recipe/process for making the glass and are less likely to have air bubbles.  What can happen is that the air bubbles in the glass can expand under pressure and explode.  To be safe….just stick to using ramekins.  The white ones that I used for this recipe worked great and are safer to use.

5.Do yourself a favor and buy vanilla bean paste!  I was so disappointed that I was out of vanilla bean paste when I made this recipe.  But, rest assured, I just ordered a new supply from Amazon!  Vanilla bean paste is one of my favorite things to cook with in the whole wide world!  Seriously, it’s amazing.  The only way I can describe it is if you were to take a bottle of vanilla extract and add in the vanilla from about 10 vanilla beans and then stir it all together.  The vanilla bean paste is less like the consistency of toothpaste and more like the consistency of maple syrup.  The flavor is so much deeper and more intense than just using vanilla extract.  And…..the best part……you get all of the beautiful little black speckles in your cooking.  If you come across vanilla bean paste at the store, take some home and give it a try.  Seriously, you’ll wonder why you ever used regular vanilla extract!

How to make the EASIEST Creme Brûlée you will ever make!

1.Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites.  You will only be using the egg yolks for this recipe.

2.In a large bowl, add egg yolks, ⅓ cup of sugar and salt.  Do not over stir.

3.Add in heavy whipping cream and vanilla.  Stir until combined. I used a whisk because it does a nice job of combining all of the ingredients together.  But, I DID NOT whisk them together.  You don’t want to add air to the ingredients during this step.

4.Place a strainer over a mixing bowl.  Pour mixture into strainer.  Be sure to scrape the bowl as a lot of egg particles get stuck there.Once mixture is strained, pour into 6 ungreased ramekins.

5.Pour 2 cups water into Instant Pot and add trivet.Fully wrap ramekins with creme brulee in foil.

6.Place ramekins on trivet.  I did 2 levels of ramekins.  To help with the stacking and to make it easier to get the ramekins out of the Instant Pot, I used my sling for the top 3 ramekins.

7.Close lid and move valve to “seal” position.  Cook on manual high for 6 minutes. When timer beeps, let the pressure naturally release for 10 minutes. Remove lid and take the ramekins out of the Instant Pot.

8.Remove foil and let cool.  Once cooled completely, place in the refrigerator until cold.  This should take about an hour. Remove from refrigerator and top with sugar.  About a tablespoon each.

9.Caramelize sugar using a creme brûlée torch.  If you don’t have a torch, you melt the sugar under the broiler in your oven.  Melt sugar until it turns light brown.  Be careful not to burn the sugar.

Ingredients:

• 8 Egg yolks
• ⅓ Cup sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 2 Cups of heavy whipping cream
• 2 Teaspoons vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
• ½ Cup sugar for caramelizing