Creme Brulee

.... concentration is everything ...

Duncan owns one of the tools in the kitchen.

The butane torch.

Mainly used to put the sugary crust on crème brulee.

He has been wanting to make it so this after noon we got together in the kitchen and put the recipe together.

Everyone who bakes knows that the first step is finding the recipe and getting the correct ingredients in the pantry or the fridge.

That alone can put a halt to some recipes.

.... captured it!  the yolk is separated from the white

A case in point is that I have been looking for sumac for weeks, wanting to make fattoush. 

What is fattoush without that final ingredient, even though it is listed as option.

It is not optional, as attested to by those who have had the salad with sumac and without.

... which shell to use to try to pick out stray bits of shell? ....

Crème brulee is easier – some egg yolks, sugar, vanilla and whipping cream.

Maybe a double boiler and for sure – the blow torch.

Duncan was the egg separator. Six eggs gave him a chance to practice doing two things: scooping bits of shell out of the white; trying to pick up the yolk from the white when his attention got off of separating the two and he cracked the whole egg into the waiting pyrex dish.

Blame that on what you will, I have done that more times than he ever will, recovered the yolk and gone one.

“This is a disaster.”

He was right.

We added the hot cream to the creamy egg yolks too fast.

We tried a bit at a time. Mmm.

... five eggs cracked, one to go ...

Scrambled eggs in cream.

Straining the concoction wasn’t enough to save it, though we went on and baked what we could.

Even the baking was a disaster with the fat separating out on top. 

Duncan wants to use that blow torch. That, after all was the whole purpose of the experiment.

We are going to try to do this again.

So much went right, that I don’t want to give up yet.

Arta