Sugar High Friday #27: Dark Chocolate Creme Brulee

This weekend my husband and our guy friends left town to gather at another friend’s house for their quarterly “Guy’s Weekend.” That meant that the females of our group gathered at my house for a “Girl’s Weekend.” And it just isn’t a great “Girl’s Weekend” without a rich chocolate dessert. So, I decided to make a dark chocolate creme brulee.

On Thursday, I went to Hy-vee and shopped for my chocolate. Since it didn’t call for pounds of chocolate (like when I made truffles) I wanted to buy something a little more expensive. I love Green and Black’s (and I probably should have bought that…) but for some reason I saw the Lindt Excellence 70% cocoa Dark Chocolate Bars on sale and went for those instead. I had never had it before and decided to try something new. It actually was pretty good, I don’t really have complaints about the chocolate … just read on…

There is a restaurant in town that my girlfriends and I love (the guys hate it calling it pretentious and overpriced with minuscule portions) called The Cafe. They offer a lot of organic and locally grown food and have amazing desserts. Awhile back we had a dark chocolate creme brulee that was fantastic. I was trying to imitate it with this recipe, but … I’m sad to say … I failed horribly.

I looked on-line and found several recipes. I thought the one shown above sounded pretty good, so I decided to go with it. It had a full 12 oz. of chocolate to 10 yolks and 3 cups of cream (plus other ingredients). So, on Friday night I set to work. I heated the cream, added flavorings, tempered the eggs before adding them to the cream; and all seemed well when they were put in the fridge to chill.

This was my first attempt ever at a creme brulee and I didn’t realize how finicky they are. This is not to say that I am not a fault here; I really should have read a little more about creme brulee before trying to make it. Maybe I should have followed the recipe more exactly, too. But, I over-baked them and I think I should have used less chocolate (hard to imagine, I know). They turned out more like a thick ganache than a light, creamy dark chocolate custard with a crisp sugar top.

This isn’t to say that what I made wasn’t tasty. It just wasn’t creme brulee. And, it was extremely rich so you couldn’t have more than a few spoonfuls at a time. Thankfully, my creme brulee failure did not dampen our girlie weekend. We shopped, ate chips and candy, watched movies, talked and played the Friends Scene-It game.

Don’t worry, this is not the end of my dark chocolate creme brulee making. I will get it right and I’m sure it will be amazing when I do. Maybe that’s what we’ll have next Girl’s Weekend…