The Perfect Ending {Wine & Dessert}

It’s only been a year since I started drinking wine and from the first day I immediately wished I was a wine expert!

Not only because I want to pair my food and desserts with wine, but so I can help others do it too! 

I mean it's all about helping each other right. I mean I wish someone told me how easy it was to make crème brulee! 

I should rephrase that, because I am sure someone has told me. I wish I had remembered that someone told me it was easy! 

It’s so totally simple you just make custard, bake it, chill it and sprinkle sugar on top and blowtorch it. The blowtorch is my favorite bit.

It used to be that whenever I went out for dinner I’d get crème brulee thinking it was all fancy and stuff, now I know better!

I am far from being a wine expert, but I am picking up some tips from Roberson Wine who sent me a bottle of Cyprès DdClimens 2006, Château Climens to pair with my crème brulee! Here is a quote from one of their wine experts:

"For a wine to work well with a dessert it needs to be about as sweet - otherwise one will overpower the other. But, more importantly, it needs to have enough acidity to make it feel refreshing and to cleanse the palate, otherwise the combination just becomes cloying. The best dessert wines, like those made in Sauternes (Bordeaux) by great producers such as Château Climens, have enough of everything - sweetness, richness, acidity and flavour to work perfectly with crème brûlée." ~ Anna Von Bertele, New World & French wines expert at Roberson Wine

I found the pairing to be spot on, the crème brulee was creamy and smooth and the wine was refreshing with subtle hints of apricot and almonds.

I used a classic crème brulee recipe. I was very please with my first attempt at this dessert that I used to think of as being a fancy treat. It’s still tastes amazing even though I don’t think of it as being fancy anymore.

Crème Brulee

150ml double cream

250ml milk

1 vanilla pod, split and seeds scraped

3 egg yolks

40g golden caster sugar

Demerara sugar

Pre-heat the oven to 150C/gas2, Place the cream, milk, vanilla pod, and seeds in a pan and bring to a gentle simmer over a low heat. Beat together the egg yolks and sugar. Remove the vanilla pod from the simmering milk, then slowly pour the egg yolk mixture into the milk mixture until combined. Then pour the custard into 6 x 100ml ramekins or 3 x 200ml ramekin. Place in a deep roasting tray and fill the tray with warm water to reach halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake for 35-45 minutes for 100ml ramekins and 50-60 minutes if you use the 200ml ramekins. Leave to cool at room temperature before chilling in the fridge before serving. When ready to serve sprinkle the Demerara sugar and torch with a kitchen blowtorch or you could caramelize the sugar under a hot grill. Leave the sugar to harden before cracking it open with your spoon! The second best part after the blowtorch!

notes: Thank you to Roberson Wine for the wine, it was lovely. All opinions are my own. There are many ways to use used vanilla pods and many ways to use up egg whites, so don’t throw them away!! Also when I go out I tend to gravitate towards Sticky Toffee Pudding… I bet that’s super easy to make too. If you have a recipe for Sticky Toffee Pudding that you love please send it my way! Crème Brulee is the perfect excuse to buy yourself a kitchen blowtorch! This recipe was taken from Jamie Oliver magazine 2013 calendar