Mini crème brûlée with fruits

Ingredients for 4 servings:

• 250 g raspberries or fruits of your choice
• 100 g sugar
• 200 ml cream
• 6 tbsp cane sugar (cassonade)
• 4 egg yolks
• 1 stalk(s) vanilla pod(s), of which the pulp
• extra powdered sugar for sprinkling

Instructions

Working time approx. 15 minutes; Rest time approx. 2 hours; Cooking/baking time approx. 55 minutes; Total time approx. 3 hours 10 minutes

Like a creme brulee.

Preheat the oven to 140-150°C (top/bottom heat). Pour the cream into a saucepan and mix with the vanilla seeds (you can also add the scraped pod if you like). Bring to a boil briefly, then let it steep for 5 minutes (off heat). Mix the sugar, cassonade (raw cane sugar), and egg yolks well – ideally with a whisk. Slowly pour the hot cream-vanilla mixture into the egg yolk-sugar mixture. Divide everything among 4 bowls and place in a bain-marie (place the bowls in boiling water in a roasting pan or similar) for 40-45 minutes in the hot oven. Let cool and then chill for 2 hours (preferably in the refrigerator). Just before serving, remove from the oven, top with the raspberries (I used mulberries because I had so many left over from last year’s bountiful harvest and froze them) and sprinkle with powdered sugar. I found a similar recipe in a French supermarket magazine here in Toulouse. I tweaked it a bit. The quantities of ingredients, in particular, didn’t seem quite right for me – for example, I reduced the amount of egg yolks and increased the amount of cream. This is certainly all a matter of taste. What’s important, however, is the heating in a water bath and the time it takes to cool.