Creme Brulee

[Kris]

Has anyone ever tried to make a raw creme brluee? I am not very adept at developing my own recipes just yet, but I was thinking it might be possible. Here are some potential ingredients:

Almond or macadamia cream
Honey or agave nectar
Vanilla
Coconut (for a coconut brulee?)
Agar-agar (is this raw?)

Sound promising so far? I have no idea how to replicate the sugar-crusted top without heat, though. Although, maybe I could think of something else, like a cookie, that could be dehydrated to crispy, then placed on top so the brluee could still be cracked. Or just give up on the cracking altogether and call it flan instead. ;)

Any ideas or suggestions or corrections?

[Blissed]

The cookie sounds like a good idea, or perhaps just the honey in a thin layer dehydrated to crispy, and put on top to tap through. Let me know how it works out - this has always been one of my favorite desserts :)

[Sharon in Colorado]

That makes me wonder if you dehydrate a circle of honey on a dehydrator sheet, will it crystalize? Might need some flax to hold it together though.

[Kris]

Interesting idea about the honey. My raw honey is solid at room temperature, so dehydrating might just make it melt. Maybe it would be possible to use that caramel recipe that's been floating around and dehydrate that until crisp. I'll give it a go and let you know what happens. :D

[Sharon in Colorado]

You are right about that. My honey always crystalizes and hardens here and it's cooler and dryer. To get it to melt down, I always have to soak the bottle in a container of hot water.

So perhaps freezing a circle of honey is the answer.

I've done a raw recipe that was like peppermint patty - it was so good - and I used honey for the choclate outside part that I wanted to harden, while using agave nectar for the inside mint part that I wanted to keep soft. The agave stays doesn't harden like honey does.

[rawpriestess]

honey will never get crispy in the dehydrator, I tried for 30 days straight, it just gets thicker, sorry.

Rhio has a creme brule' recipe, she uses African honey as the topping, says it tastes like chocolate, although creme brule' has not chocolate in it,

I used to make it cooked all the time, and I've made it raw with coconut, cashews, dates and vanilla, it is excellent, I didn't make a cripsy topping though, I just used dates dried into a hard sugar, and ground them up. It was great.

[berrienoire]

OH. MY. GAWD. Creme brule is my favorite dessert!!! Oh, I would be gah gah for a raw version of that.

Rawpriestess, do you happen to have Rhio's recipe? I checked her site but I didn't see it posted under the recipe section...and I don't have her book.

[Blissed]

had crossed my mind about the caramel recipe as a possible topping too; and rawpriestess' last message pops in an idea that perhaps one could cream up a few dates, spread them real thin, dehydrate, and perhaps have that crunchy thin layer to put on top [since sounds like the honey wouldn't do the trick from her experience]

[truthseeker]

Will a thin layer of agava dehydrate to a crisp???

[rawpriestess]

HUMMMM, I'm not sure if agave will crisp or not.

I have made apple leather, and added sweet white grapes to it, and poured it very thin and it crisps up.

I have sliced jicama really thin, and it crisps up, and is very sweet, then I dehydrated it to use as powdered sugar, which works great, so maybe a powdered jicama, or even a powdered grapes that have been dehydrated, or just a grape or apple leather, or what can we think of here?

We could even make an almond milk with tons of dates in it, an dehydrate that, the key is to get it to crispy, without looking the flavor, and also without it being just gooey, although that would be good too.

You know there is this great stuff called Tar in Juliano's book, that I always thought would be good on Creme Brule' because, it tastes like burnt sugar, but it isn't crispy, but maybe you could make it crispy with dehydration.

i don't have his book handy, and unfortunately don't have time to look it up right now, but maybe someone could look it up and see if it would work.

it's that crispy, burnt sugar flavor that makes creme' brule' not just another carmel custard dish. LOL