Sasha's Kitchen: White Chocolate Creme Brulee (Valentine's Day Special!)

I have been preparing a number of desserts lately - including some romantic valentine's day desserts, such as red velvet cupcakes with pretty pink hearts.  In addition, as the owner of a new creme brulee torch, I have been having a lot of fun preparing different types of creme brulee.  So far, I have made regular creme brulee and pumpkin creme brulee.  Tonight, I did some experimentation, and came up with a recipe for a white chocolate creme brulee, just in time to share with our readers for Valentine's Day.  I'm not even close to done with the brulee-ing as there is surely a banana-brandy creme brulee, dark chocolate creme brulee and peach creme brulee in my future.  That's all I have for now, but the impulse to keep coming up with new and unusual flavors of creme brulee is too hard for me to resist.

White chocolate is not actually even chocolate at all, yet it is almost as romantic in its connotations as milk chocolate or dark chocolate.  White chocolate is, according to Wikipedia, actually a confection of milk, sugar, deodorized cocoa butter and egg solids.  My favorite source of white chocolate has long been the white chocolate vanilla Ghiardelli squares that we had brought back from our last trip to San Francisco.

I thought that it would adapt nicely, color-wise into a creme brulee if it was melted and mixed into the cream mixture, before adding the egg yolks.  And, I was right.

Here is what you need to make white chocolate creme brulee as the perfect (and easy) Valentine's Day Dessert (makes four using normal sized brulee dishes):

1 1/4 cups of heavy cream
1 T sugar
4 oz white chocolate
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 egg yolks
Chef's creme brulee torch from Bonjour

To prepare the creme brulee, heat the heavy cream, sugar and white chocolate until the cream just starts to bubble around the edges (over medium-high heat), and the white chocolate is fully dissolved into the cream solution.  You should whisk the entire time, as the white chocolate melts and goes into solution.  While you are doing this, boil a pot of water over a separate burner.

In a mixing bowl, separate out the three egg yolks and beat with the vanilla.  Add the cream-white chocolate mixture to the egg yolk mixture.  Divide among 4 ramekins.  Use the boiling water the surround the ramekins filling the tray so that the hot or boiling water goes up halfway on the sides of the ramekins.  Bake at 300 degrees for about 30 minutes until set.

Chill for one hour, and then put a thin teaspoon of sugar on top of each and brulee according to the manufacturer's instructions on your brulee torch.

This was delicious - similar to regular creme brulee but with a nice, yet subtle white chocolate touch.  I plan on making dark chocolate creme brulee very soon (likely a much more powerful and transformative flavor)!

Check out our other Valentine's day recipes from our site, including Margie's Crunchy French Toast, My homemade Italian Limoncello and My Eat Your Heart Out Red Velvet Cupcakes.