Greek Yogurt Crème Brulee

In 2005, I fell in love.  I was young, it was Paris!  How could I not?

Wait…no.  It was London.  And I was in a French restaurant.  But anyway…

I’d be lying if I said I remembered the name of the place.  All I know is it was near Harrod’s.  We were famished and dashed into the first non-British food establishment we could find (having already gotten our “fill” of London “cuisine” the night before).  I ordered a Caesar Salad (that came topped with peppadews—sweet Heaven!) and decided to branch out & try my very first crème brulee. 

H.E.A.V.E.N. 

Still warm, it had a layer of raspberry sauce at the bottom, and a fresh raspberry on top.  Since that time, I’ve devoured nearly every crème brulee I come across.  They’re irresistible!  The crisp crack as you break through the sugar coating, the silky smooth custard that just melts away like butter…

…and that slight feeling of guilt after the indulgent bliss wears off because you just ate like, 600 calories.  Maybe only 300 if you shared with a friend.

Because, let’s be honest… it’s sugar, heavy cream, eggs, and more sugar.  Not exactly good for you.

But….but…but I got a kitchen torch for Christmas!  I NEED to make crème brulee!!!

No worries… We can make a light version…with Greek Yogurt!  And you can eat the ENTIRE THING for only 300 calories!

Ingredients: (makes two large servings, or 4 small ones)

• Two 6 oz containers nonfat plain Greek yogurt  (alternately, you could use vanilla & omit the vanilla extract & add less sugar)
• 3 egg yolks
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 Tbsp honey
• 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp orange zest
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 Tbsp granulated sugar, divided for topping

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325F.

Combine all of the ingredients (except the sugar for the topping) in a food processor or mixer and beat until smooth.  Then transfer into ramekins.  Place the ramekins in a roasting pan and then add hot water to the pan (being careful not to get any water into the ramekins) until the water comes halfway up the side of the ramekins. 

Carefully place the pan into the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes for large (8oz) servings, or 25-30 minutes for small (4 oz) ramekins…once the center shakes like Jello, they’re done.  Remove from the oven & let chill in the fridge for 2 hours (this is the hardest part…the waiting.)

Now…the fun stuff.  Get out your kitchen torch: (if you don’t have one, you can set your oven to Broil & just watch veerrrry carefully so they don’t burn…but I think it’s more fun to play with fire.) NOTE: If you don’t want to shell out big bucks for an official “kitchen torch”, get a $3 pencil torch from the nearest hardware store.  Works just fine.

 

Put 1/2 tbsp of sugar on each ramekin, and then FIRE!!!!

 

Let cool for a couple minutes, then serve!

See?  See that layer of sugary delicious glass?  That’s my favorite part.  This is a REALLY tasty recipe…the cinnamon & orange really balance out the bitterness of the Greek yogurt.

I’ve seen a couple other recipes that suggest making a light strawberry sauce (just smashed strawberries boiled down a bit), pour that into the bottom of the ramekin, cover with vanilla Greek yogurt, and then do the sugar coating, leaving the eggs out all together.  I plan on trying that version next!

 

NutriFacts:

Calories 310.3

  Total Fat 4.5 g

  Saturated Fat 1.6 g

  Polyunsaturated Fat 0.7 g

  Monounsaturated Fat 1.9 g

  Cholesterol 184.0 mg

  Sodium 78.1 mg

  Potassium 29.0 mg

  Total Carbohydrate 49.8 g

  Dietary Fiber 0.0 g

  Sugars 49.3 g

  Protein 17.9 g

Wednesday’s Word of the Day

 

I took French in high school.  Two years of it.  I went to a small school, so our options were French, Spanish, or German.  German would have made sense, since much of our area of Missouri was settled by German families.  Spanish would have made sense because it’s really practical—I mean, if the U.S. of A. were to have any sort of official secondary language, it would be Spanish.

But no, I took French, because it seemed more exotic, and because I wanted to visit Paris some day, and I justified it by saying (in my infinite 14-year-old wisdom), “someday I can live in Louisiana or Canada, where it will be useful.”

(Even K-5th graders in Louisiana speak French, why shouldn’t I?)

In college, I continued this delusion with two semesters of French.  I threw one semester of Spanish in there, but discovered that I can’t roll my R’s (true story—it’s an actual physical defect), so that was the end of that.  And to be fair, while on our honeymoon in Europe, having one Romance language under my belt made it fairly easy in both France & Italian, since there were enough similarities to limp by. (Though, on our two days in Germany, I was REALLY wishing I’d taken German instead, and was so happy that our next stop was London.)

However, I’m here to say—whatever French I learned in those 4 years was somewhere next to useless when I DID in fact move to Louisiana.  Aside from knowing that the “Vieux” in Vieux Carre (aka the French Quarter) meant “old”, a beignet was a donut, and “cafe au lait” was coffee with milk…yeah.  Not so useful.

Because a) contrary to what i believed as a 14 year old, everyone in Louisiana does not speak French…and b) the French they DO speak is not the formal French I learned.  It’s a bit of an amalgamation of English, Creole French, Acadian (Nova Scotia area) French, and Houma Indian. And you wrap that up in a Cajun accent and…yeah… We’re so far out of “Je m’appelle Bobbi” that it hurts.

Thankfully, it didn’t matter much, because as a “Yankee” (come from anywhere north of I-10, and you’ll be branded as such) they didn’t expect me to speak it anyway. And the ones who do speak it tend to just throw it in now & then, like the seasoning on a bowl of gumbo.  And I got a good bit of satisfaction on those occasions that I DID understand bits of it, like while doing field work, one of my coworkers was measuring something, and finished off by saying “C’est bon" (“It’s good”).

I digress.  Today’s word! (Which I did NOT learn in French class, but rather from one of my favorite former coworkers, Jude.)

Frissons: (Free-SOHNS) essentially, goosebumps.  Other online dictionaries define it as “an intense moment of excitement, or a shudder”.  Use it as you will.

And, as a bonus, the video for Flight of the Conchords’ “Foux de Fafa”, which always reminds of the feeling I had when I moved to Louisiana & realized just how much “french” I DIDN’T know.