Crema catalana (Catalan custard with burnt sugar)
Catalonia's own burnt cream, cooked on the stove rather than in the oven: milk steeped with cinnamon and lemon peel, thickened with egg yolks into a soft, fragrant custard, and finished with a sheet of caramel that cracks under the spoon.
- Time
- 150 min (15 prep + 135 cook)
- Servings
- 8
- Per serving
- 200 kcal
- Protein
- 6 g
Ingredients
- 4 cups 2% milk, semi-skimmed (2 %)
- peel of 1 lemon lemon zest, in wide strips, no white pith
- 1 cinnamon stick ground cinnamon
- 6 large raw egg yolks
- 1/2 cup + 1 tbsp granulated sugar
- generous 1/4 cup cornstarch
To finish
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar, for burning, 1 1/2 tsp per dish
Steps
- Pour the milk into a saucepan, keeping back 1/2 cup. Add the lemon peel and cinnamon and bring just to a simmer, then take off the heat, cover and leave for 15 minutes. Remove the peel and cinnamon.
- In a large bowl, whisk the yolks with the 110 g of sugar until pale, then whisk in the cornstarch and the cold milk you kept back until smooth.
- Reheat the infused milk until steaming, then pour it slowly into the yolk mixture, whisking all the time. Pour everything back into the saucepan.
- Cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly with a spatula and reaching the corners, for 5–7 minutes, until the custard thickens, comes to a gentle bubble and reaches at least 160°F. Pour straight into 8 shallow dishes (about 3/4 cup each). Cool, then cover and chill for at least 2 hours.
- Just before serving, sprinkle 1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar over each custard and burn with a kitchen torch until it turns to dark amber glass. Serve within 20 minutes. The custards keep 3 days in the fridge; burn the sugar only when you serve them.
Good to know
No kitchen torch?
Make a thin caramel in a small dry pan with the finishing sugar and pour a little over each custard, tilting to spread it, or use the traditional hot iron if you own one.
Can I make it with whole milk?
Yes, for a slightly fuller custard, at about 22 instead of 26.
Alternative
Per
- Calories
- 125
- Protein
- (13%)
- 4 g
- Fat
- (28%)
- 4 g
- Carbohydrates
- (60%)
- 19 g
- of which sugar
- 16 g
- Fiber
- <1 g
- Sodium
- 36 mg
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Computed from the ingredients with our published formula, not yet kitchen-tested. How
As written, 1597 kcal goes into the pot and 1332 g of ingredients comes out as about 1275 g of food: 125 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water and energy density is the score's biggest lever, so the dish is scored as cooked, not as an average of its parts. Every ingredient links to its food page, with the same data and score. The label's percentages are each macronutrient's share of the calories. The full formula.