Pumpkin Crème Brûlée

This crème brûlée is sweet and crunchy on the outside, and soft and smooth on the inside. It’s just like a classic crème brûlée except for the additional twist of pumpkin spice. Thanksgiving is coming up and I highly recommend making this cozy autumn dessert to celebrate.

Have you ever had crème brûlée? I feel like it is thought of as a difficult dessert to make, but it is relatively simple up to the blow torching part. Don’t worry we’ll get to that later, but let’s start with what’s on the inside of these tasty desserts.

Crème brûlée is a custard. Usually, you would just make a vanilla custard, but this is a fall version so we are going pumpkin. I add pumpkin puree because I think it gives the best pumpkin flavor without messing up the texture. We also add some complimenting spices to really bring out the fall-feels.

Ok now what about the brûlée? Crème brûlée literally means “Burnt cream”. Doesn’t sound great does it. But crème brûlée sounds a lot tastier. Anyway, what makes this different from any old custard? With crème brûlée, we use a blow torch to cook the very top of the custard, sprinkled with sugar. The top will get brown and crispy. This is because the sugar is caramelizing. And oh my goodness is it delicious! You get a nice crack when you break the shell and then the creamy custard leaks out. If you don’t have a blow torch, look in my recipe notes for how to do it in the oven.

Before I go on I have a little announcement. In under two weeks, Ballerina Baker will be celebrating its one year anniversary! I know one year isn’t a lot, but it has been super fun sharing my recipes with the world, and I am so excited to continue to do so! Ok, that’s it, now back to the crème brûlée!

Describe This Dessert to Me

Taste: This dish has that buttery and vanilla-y flavor you would expect from a crème brûlée. Except, there is a bit of a fall twist. Yup, its pumpkin spice. If you know me, you know I LOVE pumpkin spice. So if you notice that a large part of my fall recipes are pumpkin spice, that’s why. When I was coming up with ideas for November, my mind jumped to crème brûlée for Thanksgiving because it is a sort of a show-stopping dessert. And then of course, I landed on pumpkin for a fall flavor.
Texture: Ok, so this has two contradicting textures. But in this case, its a good thing. You’ve got the smooth custard on the bottom which, although containing no butter, is extremely buttery and creamy. To get a sense of the texture of the custard, its like that feeling of resting your head on a cold pillow after a long day, except you know, in your mouth. Then you have the caramelized sugar layer, which is crunchy and a little chewy, sort of like a hard candy. It is warm because it has just been hit with a really hot kitchen torch, which provides a really nice contrast to the cool custard.
Ease: Crème brûlée is not the easiest of desserts to make. I’m just gonna be honest with that upfront. But really it isn’t that bad. The custard is pretty simple, you just need to be careful with your timing and tempering the eggs properly (read more about his in the paragraph bellow) . Then there is the baking, where you want to make sure you are not over or under cooking them. Here is a really important step. Let the custard chill for at least four hours. This helps the texture set and the flavors intensify. I would recommend making these the day before serving them, and just chilling them overnight. This is especially good when we are talking about making these for Thanksgiving. Now here comes the difficult part. The torching. It can be difficult to do this right, because it is easy so over or under do it. You don’t want to burn it, but you want to make sure you are getting a nice even brown. This can take some practice, but you will get there!

So How do we Make This Custard?

Custard is a pretty common thing and can be used for many things. There are also several different ways of making it. We are going for the most classic approach, which involves tempering egg yolks. Wait a minute. Tempering? What does that mean? Tempering is done by slowly introducing heat to egg yolks, to slowly and gently cook them. We do this by whisking the egg yolks with granulated sugar, and then heating up a whole lot of cream with pumpkin, spice, salt, and vanilla. We stream some of this hot cream mixture into the egg yolks, making sure they don’t scramble. Then we stream that mixture into the remaining cream and whisk it together. And voila, your custard is done!

What Makes this Different From Other Custards?

Once we have the custard made, we need to cook it. We bake it in a water bath, which creates a moist environment, and gives the crème brûlée a smooth and creamy texture. Once baked let them cook at room temperature and then chill them in the freezer for at least four hours. This helps enhance both the flavors and the texture. But the most iconic thing about crème brûlée is the, well, the brûlée. So, as I previously mentioned, brûlée means burnt. We aren’t exactly “burning” our crème brûlée, at least I hope not! We are just caramelizing a thin layer of sugar on top of our custard. Caramelizing happens when we heat up sugar, which causes it to loose its liquid and melt. So pretty much, we are torching a layer of sugar on top of a smooth custard to form a solid sort of lid on top. When you are torching the sugar, you might notice it smells a bit like a toasted marshmallow, which is exactly how it should be!

Pumpkin Crème Brûlée : Through Pictures

Start by whisking the egg yolks and sugar together. Then heat up the cream, pumpkin, spices, and salt.

Stream some of the warm cream into the egg yolks, whisking constantly. Then pour that into the remaining cream. Divide among the ramekins, fill a baking pan with water, place the filled ramekins into the water bath, and bake them. Cool for one hour and then chill for at least four hours.

Sprinkle the tops with granulated sugar and torch the tops (or see instructions for cooking in the oven in recipe notes)

Serve immediately!