Creme Brulee Recipe: Silky Custard, Crisp Sugar Shell

The Short Answer: What Crème Brûlée Is and How It Works

Crème brûlée is a baked custard made from heavy cream, egg yolks, sugar, and vanilla, cooked gently in a water bath until it barely sets, chilled thoroughly, and finished with a thin layer of sugar caramelized into a glassy shell just before serving. The whole dessert rests on two temperatures: a low oven (150°C / 300°F) that lets the yolks set without curdling, and an internal custard temperature of 77–79°C (170–175°F) that means done, safe, and silky.

That is the entire recipe in one sentence pair, and it is worth memorizing, because every crème brûlée failure — runny centers, scrambled texture, a shell that never crackles — traces back to ignoring one of those numbers. This recipe makes four servings in standard shallow ramekins, uses a thermometer instead of guesswork, and includes a tested broiler method for the sugar shell if you don't own a torch.

Ingredients (Grams First, Always)

For four 170 ml (6 oz) ramekins:

A few notes on why these ingredients, in these amounts:

• Cream, not milk. Crème brûlée is the richest of the baked custards on purpose. Fat coats the egg proteins and widens your margin of error in the oven. Substituting milk for part of the cream produces a thinner, more fragile custard that overbakes easily.
• Yolks only. Egg whites set firm and bouncy; yolks set soft and dense. A crème brûlée made with whole eggs is closer to flan. Five yolks to 480 g of cream is a classic ratio — roughly one yolk per 100 g of cream — and it sets reliably without turning rubbery. Save the whites for meringues, or fold them into a batch of fudgy brownies as some bakers do to lighten them slightly.
• Modest sugar in the custard. The caramelized shell is intensely sweet, so the custard underneath stays restrained. If you sweeten the base like a pudding, the finished dessert is cloying.
• Shallow ramekins matter. Wide, shallow dishes (about 2–2.5 cm of custard depth) bake evenly and maximize the ratio of crackly shell to custard. Deep ramekins work, but expect a noticeably longer bake and check doneness with a thermometer rather than the clock.

How to Make Crème Brûlée, Step by Step

1. Heat the cream and infuse the vanilla

Pour the cream into a saucepan with the salt. If using a vanilla bean, split it lengthwise, scrape the seeds into the cream, and drop in the pod. Warm over medium heat until the cream steams and small bubbles form at the edge — do not boil. Remove from heat, cover, and let the vanilla infuse for 15 minutes. If using extract, simply warm the cream and stir the extract in at the end of this step, off the heat.

Warming the cream does two jobs: it extracts vanilla flavor, and it shortens the bake time so the custard spends less time in the oven's danger zone.

2. Whisk the yolks and sugar

In a bowl, whisk the yolks with the 67 g of sugar until just combined — about 30 seconds. You are dissolving sugar, not whipping air. Excess air becomes foam on the surface that bakes into a dull, spongy skin.

3. Temper

Slowly pour the warm cream into the yolks in a thin stream, whisking constantly. Pouring hot cream in all at once can cook the yolks into curds; adding it gradually raises their temperature gently. Fish out the vanilla pod if you used one.

4. Strain

Pour the custard base through a fine-mesh sieve into a spouted measuring cup or pitcher. Straining removes chalazae (the ropy white strands from the eggs) and any bits of cooked yolk. This step takes 30 seconds and is the difference between silky and slightly grainy. Skim any foam from the surface with a spoon.

5. Set up the water bath

Place the ramekins in a roasting pan or baking dish deep enough that water can come halfway up their sides. Divide the custard among them. Move the pan to the oven rack before adding water — carrying a full water bath across the kitchen is how custard ends up on the floor. Pour hot tap water (or just-boiled water cooled for a minute) into the pan until it reaches halfway up the ramekins, taking care not to splash any into the custard.

6. Bake low and slow

Bake at 150°C (300°F) for 35–45 minutes for shallow ramekins. Start checking at 30 minutes. Done means: the edges are set, the center wobbles like gelatin when you nudge the pan, and an instant-read thermometer inserted at the center reads 77–79°C (170–175°F). Deeper ramekins can take 50 minutes or more — trust the thermometer, not the timer.

7. Chill completely

Lift the ramekins out of the water (a flat spatula plus a towel-protected hand works well), let them cool at room temperature for about 30 minutes, then refrigerate uncovered until cold — at least 4 hours, ideally overnight. The custard finishes setting as it chills; a crème brûlée that seems slightly loose warm will firm to the right texture cold. Once fully chilled, cover with plastic wrap.

8. Brûlée and serve

Just before serving, blot any surface moisture with a paper towel, sprinkle about 1 1/2 teaspoons (6 g) of granulated sugar evenly over each custard, and tilt the ramekin to distribute a thin, complete layer. Torch in slow passes, keeping the flame moving, until the sugar melts, bubbles, and turns deep amber. Let the shell harden for a minute or two, then serve. The shell stays crisp for roughly 30–60 minutes before the moist custard softens it — brûlée at the last practical moment.

Water Bath Temperature: The Numbers That Matter

The water bath (bain-marie) exists because egg yolks are unforgiving. Yolk proteins begin thickening around 65°C (149°F) and curdle when pushed well past the target range — direct oven heat on a bare ramekin races past that window at the edges before the center catches up. Water can't exceed 100°C (212°F) and in practice hovers well below that in a 150°C oven, so it buffers the custard against the oven's swings and heats it evenly from the sides.

Three practical rules:

• Oven at 150°C (300°F). Some recipes go as high as 165°C (325°F); that works with a water bath but narrows your timing window. Lower is more forgiving.
• Start with hot water, not boiling, not cold. Cold water dramatically extends the bake; actively boiling water can overcook the outer edge before the center sets. Hot tap water is the practical sweet spot.
• Halfway up the ramekins. Less than that and the upper custard bakes on oven heat alone; more and you risk sloshing water into the custard.

This is the same principle behind a crack-free baked cheesecake — if you've made our classic cheesecake recipe, the water-bath logic transfers directly, just at a larger scale.

How to Tell When Crème Brûlée Is Set

A crème brûlée is done when the edges are fully set and the center jiggles uniformly — a single, unified wobble, like set gelatin — rather than rippling like liquid. The definitive test is temperature: 77–79°C (170–175°F) at the center means the yolk proteins have set and the custard is safely cooked. Below about 74°C (165°F) it will likely stay loose even after chilling; much above 82°C (180°F) you're heading toward curdled.

Two more cues that help:

• The tilt test. Tilt a ramekin slightly. Set custard holds its surface as one piece; underbaked custard shows liquid sliding beneath a skin.
• Do not wait for a firm center in the oven. Custard that looks fully firm while hot is overbaked. Carryover heat and refrigeration finish the job.

Why Is My Crème Brûlée Runny?

Runny crème brûlée has exactly four common causes, in descending order of likelihood:

1. Underbaked. The center never reached 77°C (170°F). The fix is prevention — use a thermometer — but a runny, already-chilled custard can sometimes be rescued by returning it to a fresh water bath at 150°C (300°F) and baking until it hits temperature. Texture suffers slightly, but it beats soup.
2. Not chilled long enough. The custard genuinely needs 4+ hours cold to reach serving texture. Two hours is not enough. If it's loose but was baked to temperature, more fridge time solves it.
3. Water got in. A splash of water-bath water during transfer thins the custard irreversibly. Nothing fixes this; pour the water carefully next time, at the oven.
4. The ratio was changed. Cutting yolks, swapping milk for cream, or scaling the recipe by volume instead of grams all weaken the set. Custard ratios are load-bearing — this is even truer here than in something forgiving like a one-bowl chocolate cake.

The opposite problem — grainy, weepy, or curdled custard — means it overbaked, or the oven ran hot without a water bath's protection. There is no rescue for curdled custard; there is only an oven thermometer next time.

Crème Brûlée Without a Torch

A kitchen torch is the best tool for the shell because it caramelizes the sugar in seconds, before heat penetrates the cold custard. But the broiler method works, with precautions:

1. Chill the custards until thoroughly cold — put them in the freezer for 15 minutes before broiling to buy extra insurance.
2. Blot the surfaces dry and sugar them as above.
3. Set the broiler to high and position a rack so the ramekins sit 5–8 cm (2–3 inches) below the element. Let the broiler preheat fully.
4. Broil with the oven door cracked and your eyes on the sugar the entire time. It can go from pale to burnt in under a minute; rotate the pan if it colors unevenly. Pull the ramekins the moment the sugar is deep amber.
5. If the custards warmed noticeably, refrigerate 20–30 minutes before serving.

Broiled shells are slightly less even than torched ones, and the custard's top layer warms a little — acceptable trade-offs. What does not work: caramelizing sugar in a dry pan and pouring it over (it sets into a thick, tooth-cracking slab that's hard to pour thin), or a hot spoon pressed on the sugar (too little stored heat to caramelize a full surface).

Make Ahead, Storage, and Safety

Crème brûlée is a genuinely great make-ahead dessert — but only the custard, never the shell.

• Baked, un-brûléed custards keep covered in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. This is the make-ahead move for dinner parties: bake a day or two ahead, torch at the table.
• Once the shell is torched, serve within the hour. Refrigerated brûléed custards develop a dissolved, syrupy top by the next day — still edible, no longer crackly.
• Never leave the custards at room temperature for more than 2 hours. This is an egg-and-dairy dessert; it belongs in the refrigerator.
• Freezing is not recommended. Thawed custard weeps and turns grainy.

For more gentle-heat desserts with the temperatures spelled out — puddings, cheesecake, and the rest of the custard family — browse the full Custards & Cheesecake collection.

Variations That Don't Break the Custard

Flavor crème brûlée through the cream infusion, not by adding liquid:

• Espresso: steep 15 g of coarsely cracked coffee beans in the hot cream for 20 minutes, then strain. (Brewed coffee thins the custard — don't.)
• Citrus: infuse the zest of one orange or lemon with the vanilla; strain it out.
• Earl Grey or chai: steep 2 tea bags in the hot cream for 10 minutes.
• Chocolate: whisk 60 g of finely chopped dark chocolate into the hot cream until melted; the custard sets slightly firmer, so start checking doneness 5 minutes early.

Whatever you infuse, the ratio, the water bath, and the 77–79°C (170–175°F) target stay exactly the same. That's the quiet advantage of learning one custard properly: every variation afterward is just flavor.