Recipes

Wow Them With Crème Brûlée by Nancy Ancrum, culinary writer

Posted: 7/29/2010

(NAPSI) - If you've never made a custard, try this. It takes a classic French dessert and combines it with a staple of the Americas--the orange-fleshed sweet potato, domesticated in South America for at least 5,000 years.

If you can whisk the egg yolks into the hot cream without scrambling them--and you can--you'll open up a world of desserts: flans of Spanish heritage, pots de crème from France and many other tantalizing sweets.

Sweet Potato Crème Brûlée

Source: Marvin Woods

• 1 large sweet potato, unpeeled
• ½ cup, plus 1 tablespoon, sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups heavy cream
• ½ vanilla bean, split
• 4 egg yolks
• Caramelized Topping
• ½ cup white sugar
• 1 tablespoon dark-brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350o F. Bake sweet potatoes, with the skin on, for about 45 minutes, or until soft. Reduce oven to 325° F.

Cool potato slightly and peel. Place sweet potato in bowl of electric mixer. Add 1 tablespoon of sugar and the vanilla extract. Mix until smooth. Divide mixture evenly among six 4-ounce ovenproof ramekins--single-serving ceramic or glass dishes--spreading sweet potato in the bottoms. Layer should be about ¼ inch deep. Set aside.

Heat cream, remaining sugar and vanilla bean in a saucepan over medium-low heat until hot. Do not boil. Let cool slightly, then quickly whisk in egg yolks. Remove vanilla bean. Ladle cream mixture into each dish over sweet potato. Bake for 1 hour. Remove from oven and refrigerate until chilled through.

For the topping, stir together white and dark-brown sugars. Sprinkle over top of each chilled dessert, covering surface completely with a thin layer. Place under broiler for 30 seconds or until sugar has just melted. Watch closely to prevent the sugars from burning. Remove from oven and let cool until the sugar topping has hardened.

Serves 6

Ms. Ancrum interviews chefs, authors and other food professionals on her Internet-radio program, "Join Us at the Table," at www.joinusatthetable.com, and is a popular food writer and speaker.