White Chocolate Creme Brûlée

White Chocolate Crème brûlée is a gorgeous, simple, and elegant dessert that will wow you and your guests. Make this dessert recipe the day before for an even easier dinner party! Step-by-step photos teach you how to bake this delicious French custard.

When I go out for dinner I almost always ask to see the dessert menu before I order my dinner. I need to know how much dinner I can eat, you know if the dessert menu is not so good I might order the cheesy garlic bread as well or if the dessert menu is amazing I know to box half of my food up so I can have room to devour three desserts.

Well, the other day I was attending TechMunch La with Hayley at The Domestic Rebel, we wanted to go get dessert so we searched hi and low for something delicious- we settled on a restaurant that had creme brulee and a warm cookie & ice cream. But we sat down surprised to find out it was a banana creme brûlée and a cinnamon cookie with chocolate ice cream. Not what I was expecting. We both ordered the cookie, banana creme brûlée was not calling my name.

I am sure you can guess, ever since that day I have been thinking about creme brûlée. In fact, by girlfriends bought me a kitchen torch almost 3 years ago for my birthday and I had never used it! Shameful, I know.

I am happy to say I finally conquered creme brûlée and why the hell did it take me this long to do, I have no idea. SO FREAKING EASY! and SO FREAKING DELICIOUS!! It is going to take all my will power not to make creme brûlée every week. So please just do it, just make white chocolate creme brûlée. You will not be disappointed, I promise.

Ingredients

You only need 6 simple ingredients to make this absolutely gorgeous French custard.

• Heavy Whipping Cream. Make sure you buy heavy whipping cream, the higher fat in the cream is what helps make the luscious custard texture.
• Vanilla bean. Just one vanilla bean pod is needed for this recipe you can also use vanilla bean paste if you want.
• White Chocolate. I prefer to use real white chocolate chopped up, in a pinch you could use white chocolate chips. I like to use Lindt White Chocolate Bars or Callebaut White Chocolate Callets.
• Salt. Just a smidge is needed!
• Sugar. I prefer to use fine baking sugar when I am making a custard. This is just granulated sugar but finer granules. You can totally use regular granulated sugar. The sugar is used for the custard recipe and also for the crunchy topping.
• Egg Yolks. You'll use six large egg yolks, you want them at room temperature. To get eggs at room temperature quickly place the eggs in a bowl of warm water for 5-10 minutes before using. Make meringue cookies with the leftover egg whites!

Baking is a science and to really achieve the best results I highly recommend investing in a kitchen scale. This OXO Kitchen Scale is the one I use and is also the number one recommended kitchen scale by Cook's Illustrated. Think about it -what one person scoops into a "cup" is completely different from what someone else scoops!

Instructions

First thing we will do is extract the vanilla beans from the pod.

Cut your vanilla bean open in half lengthwise. I find it easiest to hold the bean down and slice it.

Then use the non-sharp side of a knife to scrape out the vanilla beans.

In a thick-bottomed saucepan over medium-low heat cook the heavy cream, white chocolate, salt, vanilla bean, and actual vanilla bean pod.  Stirring constantly, cook until mixture comes to a very slight simmer, just before a boil. Check that the white chocolate is melted, it should be if you added chopped pieces rather than one large piece. Then take the pot off of the heat and place lid on and let steep for 10 minutes.

In a large roasting pan place 6 (8oz) ramekins or custard cups inside and put the kettle on to boil and preheat oven to 325F/163C.

Now we'll work on the egg yolk mixture.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment or large bowl with a handheld electric whisk beat the sugar and egg yolks until fully combined and much lighter in color, a pale yellow. This will take a couple of minutes.

Remove vanilla bean pod from the cream mixture and slowly pour the cream mixture to the egg mixture with the whisk attachment on at the lowest speed whisking continually. Take your time doing this so the eggs do not curdle.

I like to pour the cream mixture over a sieve into a pitcher with a pour spout for easy pouring into the ramekins. Straining the cream also helps ensure a super smooth creme brûlée.

Once completely mixed pour the mixture evenly into ramekins. Place the baking pan on the oven rack and pour boiling water from the kettle or hot water from the tap in the roasting pan, pour enough to come up halfway of the ramekins

Bake for 32-40 minutes, you want the center of the creme brulee's to be set but have a little bit jiggle, if you want to use an instant-read thermometer the internal temperature should be 170F/77C. Take out of the oven and place the roasting pan on a wire rack. After five minutes remove the ramekins from the roasting pan and let cool for 1 hour on wire rack. Place in the fridge for at least 4 hours or overnight before serving.

To ensure success I highly recommend using an instant-read thermometer. I get SOOO much use out of my Thermapen Mk4 (affiliate link). From cooking filet mignon, tempering chocolate, roast turkey, making caramel, and more!

When ready to serve sprinkle 1 tablespoon of sugar on top of each creme brulee swirling the ramekin so the sugar is spread evenly and using a kitchen torch, torch the top of the creme brulee until the sugar has caramelized and hardened. To prevent too many burnt spots make sure to hold the torch back a few inches for a more even burning.

You can also turn your oven broiler on and brûlée that way. Place the ramekins under the broiler until caramelized, watch carefully as they can burn ever so easily, trust me do not walk away!!

Serve immediately with fresh berries if desired.

This is seriously the best dinner party dessert since you can prepare it the day before then just add the sugar and brûlée when ready to serve! This chicken and white beans dinner my friend Ari makes would be perfect too for a dinner party.

More Creme Brûlée Recipes

• The Best Vanilla Bean Creme Brulee Recipe. You can't beat the original classic!
• Salted Caramel Creme Brulee. The caramel undertones with the custard are unreal.
• Chocolate Creme Brulee Recipe. You've had white chocolate now try rich chocolate!!

★★★★★ Please let me know if you make this recipe by leaving a star rating and comment below!

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This post was originally published January 21, 2014 but as of September 26, 2020 the recipes, photos, and text have been updated.