Fussy but fabulous

Despite their fancy names, two trendy desserts - flan and crème brûlée - are merely custards, and a custard's ingredients are simple: egg yolks, cream, sugar and flavoring. So cooking them should be easy, right?

Don't be deceived. The combo can become a nightmare when heat is added, turning an otherwise satiny mixture into something as bouncy as a rubber ball.

To learn how to do it right, we turned to Nga Dao and to "The Best International Recipes," a Cook's Illustrated cookbook, for some tips.

Dao, who co-owns Lemongrass Bistro Vietnamese restaurant in Colorado Springs, Colo., makes dozens of her award-winning crèmes brûlées and flans weekly. She learned the techniques for consistently turning out creamy custards as a teenager in Vietnam.

"My older sister's husband's parents had worked in a French restaurant," she says. "They taught my sister how to make the custards, and she taught me."

Although similar, there are key differences. Crème brûlée is finished with a crusty sugar topping. For flan, custard is baked atop a layer of caramel sauce. When turned out of the baking dish, the caramel sauce is on top of the custard.

Following are Dao's tips. Flan tips come after that.

Crème brûlée

1. Have eggs and cream at room temperature.

2. Separate eggs - Dao uses eight large eggs - putting the yolks into a large mixing bowl. You can use the whites in another dish, or freeze them.

3. Set the egg yolks aside, and heat heavy cream in a saucepan (4 cups, in Dao's recipe) over medium heat. Use real vanilla or, as Dao does, scrape seeds from a plump vanilla bean into the cream. "Don't use imitation stuff," she says. "When I make this at home, I use about 2 tablespoons bourbon along with the vanilla bean."

4. While the cream comes to a simmer, whisk the egg yolks with a cup of sugar until it thickens - all the while checking to make sure the cream doesn't boil. Once the cream starts to bubble around the edges, remove it from the heat and strain it into another bowl.

5. Start whisking the egg yolk-sugar mixture; while whisking slowly, pour about one-fourth of the hot cream into the yolks. This is one of the tricky parts.

"You have to do this very slowly," Dao warns. "If you add the hot cream too fast, it will cook the eggs and the mixture won't be any good. You have to start over."

Continue gradually adding the hot milk to the egg mixture until it all has been added. By adding the hot mixture to the yolks, you'll be "tempering" the egg yolks to gradually warm them up so they won't cook.

6. Carefully ladle the warm cream-and-egg mixture into ramekins set inside baking pans. (Dao's recipe uses 21 fluted 5-ounce ramekins in two large baking pans.) If desired, put a tea towel in the bottom of the pan, beneath the ramekins, to keep them from moving around. Fill the pans with hot water to about halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Place the pans in a 300-degree oven for about 30 minutes. The custard is done when the edges are set and the center still jiggles - "shaky but not sloshy," Dao says.

Overcooking is another stumbling block to making a good custard. Cook's Illustrated suggests using an instant-read thermometer to test for doneness. At sea level, the custard is done at 170 to 175 degrees.

7. When the custards have cooled enough to handle, put them in the refrigerator to chill completely.

8. When ready to serve, it's time to brûlée - "burn," in French. Dao sprinkles a teaspoon of sugar over the top of each ramekin, then tips the dish around so the sugar covers the top evenly. She burns the sugar with a hardware store propane torch.

"Just run the flame over the top until the sugar turns deep golden brown," she says. "Put it back in the refrigerator for about 5 minutes so the custard gets cold again and the sugar crust gets crusty."

Though you can brown the top under the broiler, you're not likely to get a beautiful, even job. You can buy small kitchen torches, but they are more expensive and have less power than the hardware variety.

To test the crispness of the sugar topping, gently tap it with a spoon. "It should sound like hitting a glass," Dao says.

Flan

Flan is a close cousin to crème brûlée, but in the Cook's Illustrated recipe, there are a few differences:

Instead of using just egg yolks, Cook's Illustrated recommends adding a couple of egg whites. The magazine's researchers found that too many yolks made the flan too rich; too many whites resulted in a frothy custard instead of a silky dessert. For best results, they use a recipe that calls for five yolks and two whites: "The resulting custard was tender yet not overly rich and firm enough to unmold easily," they wrote.

Instead of using heavy cream, they went for sweetened condensed milk. They got the richness they wanted and didn't need to add more sugar to the recipe.

Before adding the mixture to ramekins or a pan, you need to lay down a layer of caramel. There are two methods for making caramel: wet and dry. The dry method uses only sugar that is heated until it melts and caramelizes. Cook's Illustrated testers found that this method (which Dao uses) is tricky. The wet method adds water to the sugar and heats the mixture until the water evaporates and the sugar caramelizes. Testers felt that this method was easier for the home cook.

Once the sugar is caramelized, it is poured into a 9-inch cake pan. The pan is then filled with the egg-and-milk mixture and placed in a larger pan with a water bath. Bake till just done, chill and turn upside down to serve.

CRÈME BRÛLÉE

Yield: 20 servings

4 cups heavy cream, chilled

2/3 cup granulated sugar

Pinch salt

1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise, seeds scraped out and reserved

10 large egg yolks

8-12 teaspoons sugar

Procedure:

Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Combine cream, sugar, salt, vanilla seeds and pod in medium saucepan and bring to boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally to dissolve sugar. Remove pan from heat and let steep to infuse flavors, about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, arrange 20 (4- to 5-ounce) ramekins (or shallow fluted dishes) in a warm pan. Bring a kettle of water to boil over high heat.

After cream has steeped, whisk yolks together in large bowl until uniform in color and texture. Whisk about 1 cup cream mixture into yolks until loosened and combined; repeat with another 1 cup cream mixture. Add remaining cream mixture and whisk until evenly colored and thoroughly combined. Strain through a fine-mesh strainer into 2-quart measuring cup or pitcher; discard solids in strainer. Pour or ladle mixture evenly into ramekins.

Gently place baking dish with ramekins on oven rack. With great care, pour boiling water into baking dish, without splashing any water into ramekins, until water reaches 2/3 the height of ramekins. Bake until centers of custards are just barely set and are no longer sloshy, and an instant-read thermometer inserted in centers registers 170-175 degrees (at sea level), 30-35 minutes (25-30 minutes for shallow fluted dishes). Begin checking temperature about 5 minutes before recommended time.

Transfer ramekins to wire rack and cool to room temperature, about 2 hours. Set ramekins on rimmed baking sheet, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until cold, at least 4 hours or up to 4 days.

Uncover ramekins. If condensation has collected on custards, place a paper towel on surface to soak up moisture. Sprinkle each with about 1 teaspoon sugar; tilt and tap each ramekins for even coverage. Ignite a torch and caramelize the sugar. Refrigerate ramekins, uncovered, to re-chill, 30-45 minutes maximum.

Source: "The Best International Recipes: A Home Cook's Guide to the Best Recipes in the World," by Cook's Illustrated magazine

Flan

Yield: 6 servings

1/2 cup sugar

2 tablespoons water

2 large eggs

3 large egg yolks

1/4 teaspoon grated zest from 1 lemon

1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

1 1/2 cups low-fat milk

Procedure:

Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Bring sugar and water to boil in small saucepan, swirling pan gently, until sugar has dissolved, about 3 minutes. Reduce to simmer and cook, gently swirling pan occasionally, until mixture has caramelized to a deep, dark mahogany color, 7-10 minutes. Carefully pour caramel into 9-inch cake pan and cool slightly until hardened.

Place pan in center of large roasting pan. Bring a kettle or large saucepan of water to boil over high heat.

Meanwhile, whisk whole eggs and egg yolks together in medium bowl until thoroughly combined, about 1 minute. Whisk in zest and milks. Pour mixture into cake pan and gently place roasting pan on oven rack. Being careful not to splash any water inside pan of custard, pour boiling water into roasting pan until water reaches halfway up side of cake pan.

Bake until center of custard is just barely set, no longer sloshy, and an instant-read thermometer registers 170-175 degrees, 30-40 minutes (start checking temperature after 25 minutes).

Carefully remove roasting pan from oven and carefully transfer cake pan to wire rack. Let cool to room temperature, about 2 hours. Wrap cake pan with plastic wrap and refrigerate custard until completely chilled, at least 2 hours and up to 24 hours.

Run a knife around cake pan to loosen custard. Invert large serving platter over top of cake pan. Grasping both the cake pan and platter, gently flip custard onto platter, drizzling any extra caramel sauce over top (some caramel will remain stuck in pan). Serve immediately.

Source: "The Best International Recipes: A Home Cook's Guide to the Best Recipes in the World," Cook's Illustrated magazine.