As a confirmed chocoholic, it has always been my belief that all desserts should involve chocolate.  However, there are a few exceptions, and one is creme brulee.  I had to find a way to make this at home and for the whole family, below is the result.  To make this really pop, use a vanilla bean and scrape out the inside, adding to the custard instead of the vanilla extract.  But be warned, vanilla beans don’t come cheap!

For this recipe, all you need is a quick custard made of ingredients you usually have around the house, a crust and a kitchen blowtorch…then viola! Creme Brulee pie.  An impressive and tasty, but shockingly low maintenance elegant end to any meal.  If you don’t have a kitchen torch, just serve it as a custard pie without the topping of crisp sugar.

Ingredients

4 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 cup scalded whole milk

Sprinkling of nutmeg

Crust see below

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Get the milk in a pot over medium heat, you will want to stir it frequently and get it to where there are bubbles on the edges.  While the milk is heating, beat the 4 eggs in a large bowl.  Whisk sugar, salt and vanilla into the eggs.

Add just a touch of the hot milk into the eggs and stir, then a bit more, tempering the eggs.  If you were to add hot liquid to cold eggs all at once you would have scrambled eggs.  Slowly pour in the rest of the milk and the filling is complete.

Pour into a pie crust then sprinkle with nutmeg.  I like to use my microplane and a whole nut, but if you have the powdered nutmeg that is fine too!

Cook in the oven for 30-40 minutes.  Check doneness by inserting a toothpick or knife in the center.  Once it comes out clean it is done.

To make it creme brulee on top, sprinkle demerara sugar on the surface of the cooled pie and hit it with the cook’s blow torch (I had mine for years sitting in the cabinet and finally pulled it out for this, making it a crunchy fantastic top!)

Crust

* You can use a pie crust recipe you are comfortable with, or use a store bought crust.  I used the below crust and the taste was great!

Biscoff Crust

Ingredients

18 Biscoff cookies (see below photos)

1/4 cup butter melted

1/4 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Blend the cookies in a cuisinart mini prep until they turn into a sandy consistency, then pour them into a medium bowl.  Add the butter and sugar and mix well.  Push the pie crust into the pie pan with your fingers to cover evenly.  Get some up the sides without leaving any holes in the middle.  Cook for 3-4 minutes then stick in the fridge until filling is ready to pour into the crust.   Also great for a pumpkin cream pie!