Pumpkin Creme Brulee

A week or so ago, my friend Megan from Megan's Cookin, and I decided to this cookbook project. I have a ton of cookbooks, some of them I have not opened the first time, so this would be something to get me to use them. So, for the first round, I chose this Pumpkin Creme Brulee from Gale Gand's book Butter, Sugar, Flour, Eggs. I first saw her on the Food Network show Sweet Dreams. How I miss that show!

This is all that you would want in this dessert, pumpkin, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg...love it. The recipe said that you would get 4 creme brulee's out of this recipe, but I got 6! Bonus!!

Next up is Megan, I can't wait to see what she picks!

Pumpkin Creme Brulee
By:Gale Gand

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup whole milk
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
2 pinches nutmeg
1 pinch ginger
1 pinch ground cloves
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup canned pumpkin puree
1/3 cup coarse sugar or raw sugar


Directions:

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.

In a medium saucepan, heat the cream, milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves over medium heat, stirring occasionally, just until it comes to a boil. Immediately turn off the heat and set aside to infuse at least 15 minutes.

In a large bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the granulated sugar. Whisking constantly, gradually pour in the hot cream mixture. Whisk in the pumpkin puree. Pour the mixture into 4 ovenproof ramekins and arrange in a hot water bath. Bake in the center of the oven until almost set but still a bit soft in the center, 30 to 40 minutes. The custard should "shimmy" a bit when you shake the pan; it will firm up more as it cools.

Remove from the water bath and let cool 15 minutes. Tightly cover each ramekin with plastic wrap, making sure the plastic does not touch the surface of the custard. Refrigerate at least 2 hours, and up to 24 hours. When ready to serve, preheat a broiler to very hot (or fire up your kitchen torch).

Uncover the chilled custards. Pour as much coarse sugar as will fit onto the top of 1 of the custards. Pour off the remaining sugar onto the next custard. Repeat until all the custards are coated. Discard any remaining sugar. Place the ramekins on a baking sheet or in a roasting pan and broil until the sugar is melted and well browned, 1 to 2 minutes. Let cool 1 minute before serving.