ScranDad's Giant Creme Caramel
We love this for a father's day treat, so that ScranDad could have an indulgently large dish of classic creme caramel instead of a small ramekin. It takes a few hours, so best to prepare the day before so it's ready in the fridge.
Ingredients
Caramel
- 160 g Sugar Brown sugar will make it an even darker caramel
- 90 ml Water
Custard
- 3 Extra large Eggs Same as 4 medium eggs
- 2 whole Egg yolks
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 25 g Caster sugar
- 600 ml Whole milk
Optional to serve
- 300 ml Pouring cream
Instructions
Caramel
- Put the large dish into the oven on a low heat (150C). This is so the dish doesn't crack when the boiling sugar mix is poured in.
- Put the sugar and water into a saucepan on a low heat, and warm until the sugar is entirely dissolved. Check with the bottom of the spoon there are no granules left in the middle of the pan when stirred.
- Stop stirring and let it boil until the caramel turns dark copper coloured. If you have a sugar thermometer this is above 174C.
- Take it off the heat so it doesn't burn and pour it into the warmed dish. Then set it aside on a cooling rack so that it becomes hard.
- Once the caramel is hard and the dish has cooled a bit, butter the side of the dish above the caramel to stop the custard sticking later.
Custard
- Whisk the eggs, egg yolks, vanilla extract and caster sugar together in a large bowl until well mixed.
- Boil a filled kettle.
- Warm the milk in a pan until it's hot but not scalding (so you can just dip your finger in and not burn it). Strain the milk through a sieve into the egg and sugar mix.
- Whisk it all together until it's smooth, then pour the mixture into the large dish.
- Stand the dish in a roasting tin, and fill it to half way with boiling water from the kettle.
- Cook in the oven for about 40-50 minutes or until the custard has set. Don't overcook the custard: check around the edges of the dish, to make sure no bubbles are appearing.
- Take the dish out of the oven and set it onto a cooling rack. Once it's fully cooled, transfer to the fridge to chill, and so that the caramel is absorbed into the custard (best overnight).
- To serve, loosen the edges of the custard with a knife, and put a large plate on top of the dish, then invert the lot and shoogle (shake) the dish and tap the top so that the whole thing goes onto the plate.
- Optionally serve with the pouring cream.
Notes
There's additional cooling time of about 20 minutes for the caramel mix, about 2 hours for the custard to come to room temperature, then another 2-3 hours in the fridge. It can be done in one day if you start early, but chilling overnight for more time for the caramel to be absorbed into the custard is better.