It does not require a kitchen torch.

It does not require you to pre-cook your cream.

It doesn't even require a water bath.

The only unusual piece of equipment you need is the Ramekins themselves.

This recipe is formulated for the standard five ounce kind.

Here's the custard.

One serving is one egg yolk, one tablespoon of sugar, one teaspoon of vanilla extract and enough heavy cream to give you one half cup total of liquid.

That's it.

That's ready to go in the oven.

Today, I'm going to do enough for four custards.

Four egg yolks, you can rocky chug those whites later.

Four tablespoons of sugar, beat that up with a fork and really give it a go.

We're not going to bother straining the custard.

So you really want to bash this up to make sure there's no big globs of sugar or egg protein.

Four teaspoons of vanilla, that's a tablespoon plus one teaspoon.

Use less vanilla if that's too strong for you, but to me, it's the star of this dessert.

Then enough heavy cream to give me two cups total of custard.

Proportionally, that's less egg than people normally use.

But that ensures the custard won't over coagulate and go gritty since we're not going to be using the water bath.

I mean, you could use a water bath if you want to.

The low maximum heat of water keeps the edge of the ramekin from getting too hot and over cooking the outer rim of custard.

But I always sloshed it around.

I always burn myself.

I think it's a pain.

I just do a low protein custard base and a low oven temperature, 250 °F.

When you pour these in, you fill to that line, that line is four ounces or half a cup precisely. Easy.

Now, before I put these in, watch what happens when I kind of tap them or nudge them.

Just remember how those ripples look.

You can put those right onto the middle rack. 250 °F, done.

They'll take maybe 45 minutes in there. It depends on your oven.

Here's how, you know if they're done. You just open up the door and nudge them again.

See how it looks like a loose gelatin?

Remember how the ripples looked when it was totally liquid and now compare how they look when the custard is done.

I know they seem underdone, but trust me, the custard will firm up solid as it cools.

If it wasn't super wobbly like that, it would be a hockey puck by the time you ate it.

When they're cool enough to touch, you're good to move them to the fridge.

They'll be cool enough to eat after maybe a half hour in there.

But I prefer to chill them overnight and when you chill them that long, you want to cover them.

Otherwise they can dry out and they can pick up funny odors from the fridge.

It's the perfect dinner party dessert because you can do all this the day before.

So traditionally, here's what you do.

You spoon on some sugar and smooth it out.

I'm on team very thin layer of sugar.

Then you blast it with a butane torch and it helps if you kind of rotate it as you go, that gets you an even layer.

That's nice.

That's lovely.

But say you don't have a torch.

Some people put them under the broiler.

Very high rack, very hot broiler, leave the door open.

You want to minimize convective and conductive heat, warming up the custard.

You just want the radiative heat from the broiler to caramelize the sugar and in my oven six minutes later, it was done.

(The) problem is the custard is now hot and by the time you cool it down, the candy top won't be as crunchy and it's not that crunchy now, it's more crumbly in texture.

I say, forget the broiler.

Get your smallest pan and throw in one tablespoon of sugar per custard.

A tiny squeeze of honey to prevent crystallization and a few drops of water to get this thing started melting.

Put it on medium heat, stir it around until it's mixed up and then get rid of that spatula.

You'll never stir this again.

It doesn't matter that there's crystals on the side there.

The honey will stop the syrup from seizing.

Corn syrup would do an even better job. Britz, your golden syrup would work.

Just wait like 10 minutes until it turns amber and then it'll suddenly go much more fluid.

It's hard to make caramel at home because it burns so easily.

But guess what, we want this to burn.

Brulee means burned.

When it's just getting dark, you'll see little wisps of smoke coming off.

Turn off the heat, and then the only tricky part is judging how much caramel to pour on because too much is no good.

You want a thin candy that you can easily crack through.

I was obviously too conservative with this one and I had to keep pouring on more.

You roll it around to get it even and smooth and note that I have the caramel on the still hot burner while I do this.

That's to keep it liquid heats off. It's not going to burn.

Move on to the next one, and that time I judged the amount better.

Only had to give it one more dose to get it covered.

Let that cool for a few minutes until it's set hard, and there you go.

Yes.

Compared to the torched version that is clear and glassy.

But who's to say that's a bad thing?

In the mirror universe where the caramel version developed as the traditional method,

me with a goatee is probably saying, yeah, you know, this newfangled torch version doesn't get you that same clear glassy topping that tradition really demands.

But it's an OK substitution.

Long Live the Empire.

All right. Time for that wonderful sound.

Oh, yeah.

And look at that custard underneath.

Totally smooth and soft even without the water bath.

And the candy topping still totally has that slightly burned flavor that contrasts beautifully with the sweet custard.

So good.

And I love that the custard is still cold.

Oh, and if you're like, "OMG, how am I gonna clean this pan?"

Just let it soak in water for a few minutes.

Sugar dissolves in water.

Done.