Baking with Dorie: Daniel Boulud’s Coffee-Cardamom Pots de Crème
I always think of pots de crème, or little pots of crème, as the French answer to our puddings. Really a baked custard, the crème can be created in just about any flavor combo. That uber-chef Daniel Boulud created them to be coffee-cardamom was a nod to the way coffee is often drunk in the Middle East: through a cardamom pod held between one’s teeth.
Of course, Daniel being Daniel (and thank goodness he is), he ups the ante a bit: he caramelizes the coffee beans and cardamom pods before he pours in milk and cream and steeps everything for a few minutes. Even though this dessert is made with big flavors—you can hardly call coffee or cardamom wallflower flavors—the caramelizing step makes the flavors even bigger and more intense.
When these are baked in a professional kitchen, the custard cups, set in a roasting pan filled with water, are covered with a sheet of plastic wrap. The wrap doesn’t budge or burn because the temperature is low (of course, you’ve got to have an oven that keeps this low temperature). If the idea of baking with plastic wrap doesn’t make you comfortable, cover the set-up with foil.
Photograph taken by Gentl & Hyers
About the author: Dorie Greenspan is the author of several books on dessert, most recently Baking: From My Home to Yours. Dorie can also be found at DorieGreenspan.com and on the Bon Appétit website, where she is a special correspondent.
Coffee-Cardamom Pots de Crème
Adapted from The Café Boulud Cookbook
- makes 6 servings -
Ingredients
3 ounces (1 cup) coffee beans, preferably an espresso roast
2 tablespoons cardamom pods
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups (approximately) heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
7 large egg yolks
Procedure
1. Put the coffee beans and cardamom pods in the workbowl of a food processor and pulse on and off several times to roughly chop—not grind—the ingredients. Turn the chopped beans and pods into a medium saucepan and add 1/2 cup of the sugar. Put the pan over medium heat and cook, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the sugar starts to melt. Patience—this will take a few minutes. Once the sugar has melted, continue to cook, still stirring without stop, until the sugar caramelizes—you want the color of the caramel to be deep amber. Now, standing away from the stove so you don’t get splattered, slowly pour in 1 cup of the cream and the milk. Don’t panic—the caramel will immediately seize and harden—it will all smooth out as the liquids warm and the sugar melts again. Bring the mixture to a boil and, when the sugar has melted and everything is smooth again, pull the pan from the heat. Cover the pan (we do this with plastic wrap at the Café to get a good seal) and allow the mixture to infuse 20 minutes.
2. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 300°F.
3. Working in a bowl that’s large enough to hold all the ingredients, whisk the yolks and remaining 1/4 cup sugar together until the mixture is pale and thick. Strain the coffee-cardamom liquid into a measuring cup (discard the beans and pods) and add enough heavy cream to bring the liquid measurement up to 2 cups. Very gradually and very gently—you don’t want to create air bubbles—whisk the liquid into the egg mixture; skim off the top foam, if there is any.
4. Arrange six 4-ounce espresso or custard cups in a small roasting pan, leaving an even amount of space between the cups, and fill each cup nearly to the top with the custard mixture. (If you liked, line the roasting pan with a double thickness of paper towel or a kitchen towel to steady the cups.) Carefully slide the pan into the oven; then, using a pitcher, fill the roasting pan with enough hot water to come halfway up the sides of the espresso cups. Cover the pan with plastic wrap (don’t worry—it can stand the heat) and poke two holes in two diagonally opposite corners. Bake the custards for about 40 minutes, or until the edges darken ever so slightly and the custards are set but still jiggle a little in the center when you shake them gently.
5. Remove the pan from the oven and let the custards sit in the water bath for 10 minutes. Peel off the plastic wrap, lift the cups out of the water and cool the custards in the refrigerator. (The pots de creme can be prepared a day ahead and, when cool, covered with plastic wrap and stored in the refrigerator.)
To serve: The pots de creme are at their best at room temperature, so remove them from the refrigerator and keep them on the counter for about 20 minutes before serving.
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12 Comments:
awesome, thank you, i will definitely try this. the plastic wrap thing does bother me though, is there any way around it?
seyo at 1:10PM on 01/17/08
Seyo: Dorie says in the post, "The wrap doesn’t budge or burn because the temperature is low (of course, you’ve got to have an oven that keeps this low temperature). If the idea of baking with plastic wrap doesn’t make you comfortable, cover the set-up with foil."
Adam Kuban at 1:49PM on 01/17/08
oops, somehow i missed that part. Thanks, Adam, my extra set of eyes.
seyo at 2:16PM on 01/17/08
Sounds really good. From a curiosity standpoint - the coffee beans are described as being "caramelized" but I think that's really happening to the sugar itself and not the beans - right? There is in fact some caramelization of of the natural sugars in coffee beans that occurs to various degrees during the roasting process. I wonder whether the degree and type of heat applied in this process actually causes additional caramelization of the beans and any change in flavor.
phaelon56 at 2:25PM on 01/17/08
I would love to eat one of these desserts if someone prepared it...I don't feel accomplished enough to be successful:( The flavor combination sounds heavenly, thanks for the recipe Dorie!
JEP at 5:44PM on 01/17/08
Hi All -- let's start with JEP: you can do it! Read the recipe thru a couple of times and I think you'll see that it's really very doable.
Phaelon 56 - you're right, it's the sugar that's caramelizing, not the coffee beans per se. But I think the additional heat does intensify the coffee flavor so that the milk gets every bit of coffee flavor possible.
Seyo -- glad this worked out.
And thanks, Adam.
dorie at 9:44PM on 01/17/08
MMMmmmmm... thanks Dorie!!! Not only is Daniel my very favoritist chef, but I also adore anything remotely related to custard. Not to mention my coffee addiction (drug of choice). I will definitely be trying this one out!!!
LoCo at 11:40PM on 01/17/08
I found the plastic wrap weird to be a weird suggestion, I wonder if there is any off-gasing...I guess it doesn't matter, I didn't use it when I made this on Saturday.
Here's my picture, not as pretty as Dorie's photo but delicious none the less.
h.
http://talkmorelater.blogspot.com/
hamahoney at 2:48PM on 01/21/08
I just made these and they're cooling as we speak. I think for next time I'll start caramelizing the sugar before adding the coffee beans and cardamon. You can hardly see if you have the correct amber color and the pan gets a bit hot so it felt like the coffee was getting burnt.
Skimming the foam off makes the presentation nicer however you lose about 1/2cup in the process. The plastic wrap melted in my oven within the first few minutes so I removed it and didn't use anything else. Maybe because I forgot to poke holes in it? Then again, people at home don't have industrial strength plastic wrap. Looks great and I'm sure it'll taste great!
halfpint at 6:51PM on 01/21/08
Are you using black cardamom or green cardamom? Does it make that big of a difference?
Thanks!
scase1949 at 9:19AM on 01/23/08
I love pots de creme so much I actually have their little pots with lids.
http://kitchenmusings.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/09/chocolate_pots_.html
Question: Does this mean I can skip the saran wrap and use the lids that came with the pots. I was never sure if it was for decoration or it would actually seal the pot when cooking.
Veron at 8:25AM on 02/05/08
I made these yesterday. They were phenomenally delicious. All the guests loved it, me included. BUT, I had some confusion about the quantity of cream. The ingredients indicate approx. 2 cups of cream plus the 1 cup milk (which would make 3 cups). It says use the 1 cup cream and 1 cup milk to steep the coffee/cardamom caramel mixture, then you strain this (to remove the coffee and cardamom pods) and measure it, and ADD MORE CREAM to measure 2 cups. I had 2 cups there, except for about a tablespoon, which I added. I hunted the recipe for where I might be adding more cream - nothing there. The mixture then measured 2 cups. If you fill 4 ounce espresso cups, that's only 4 servings (4 oz. x 4 cups = 16 ounces, excactly what I had). I ran out of enough of the custard so had to reduce quantity for everyone to have enough for 6 people. I tasted the mixture and found it to be quite sweet, so really figured I should be adding more cream to dilute it some (and also to have enough quantity). Is it possible I should have added more cream to measure THREE cups? Dorie, if you're monitoring these posts, I'd sure appreciate any comment. I'd like to make these again, but want to make sure I am doing it right. I don't know the chemistry of 7 egg yolks to milk, and whether that's enough to thicken 3 cups of liquid. Thanks.
Oh, I used the plastic wrap with no problem. It didn't melt. And, yes, I think the covered pots de creme cups would be wonderful, and would certainly use the lids instead of plastic wrap. I think that's really what they're for.
CarolynT at 12:54PM on 02/20/08