Green Tea Creme Brulee

Photo: flickr user karendotcom127

Ingredients

2 teaspoons loose green tea leaves, good quality (10 ml)

1 1/2 cups whipping (35%%) cream (375 ml)

1/2 cup homogenized whole milk (125 ml)

1/4 cup sugar (60 ml)

1/2 vanilla bean, scraped

4 lrg egg yolks

sugar, for brulee topping

Preparation

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Put the whipping cream, milk, sugar, vanilla bean and the green tea leaves in a medium saucepan over medium high heat. Bring to just to a boil. Remove from heat and cover. Let mixture steep for 15 minutes to develop flavour.

In a stainless steel bowl whisk the egg yolks. To make the custard, continue to stir egg yolks as you slowly pour the hot cream mixture over the yolks. Strain custard. Pour or ladle evenly into four 6-ounce ramekins or gratin pans.

Bake in a water bath by placing ramekins into a shallow baking pan. Carefully pour enough boiling water into the baking pan so the water comes halfway up the sides of the ramekins.

Bake just until custard centres jiggle slightly when pan is moved, about 30 to 35 minutes. Remove from water bath. Cool custard to room temperature. Refrigerate and chill for at least 3 hours or overnight.

Sprinkle 2 tsp. of sugar on top of the custards. Caramelize the sugar with a creme brulee torch or directly under the broiler.

Green tea powder can be quite expensive and sometimes hard to find so in this recipe I've used green tea leaves instead - the key is to use really good quality tea leaves.