Stupid Creme Bruleee

You know that old Joke about the soldier writing a letter home to his girl, and his buddy asks why he's writing so slowly, and the reply is: "cuz my girl don't read too fast"?

Well, read this post very slowly, because that's how I'm writing it. Why? Because I'm stupid. Not stupid in the sense that I can't write or type quickly, no, stupid in the stupid sense.

I've been stupid before. Like when I was blending thawed frozen broccoli with a hand blender and cleaned out the blade while it was still plugged in, and I was pressing the button. I only needed skin glue for that stupidity.

Now, many of you dear readers know where this post is going. You knew it from the title. Because you were there. Those of you who were not there, let's get you up to speed.

I made a dinner party last night for a newly married couple and 28 of their friends and relatives. It was actually a very nice shindig with the first two courses served, the main as buffet, and then dessert served as well. Aaaaah, dessert. I'm not much of a bakestress and dessert tends to be a bit of a pressure for me since it is not, (to steal a favored phrase of MBB's) in my wheelhouse. So after much thought and a bit of deliberation I decided, based on my menu and decor, to take a stab at making creme brulee. I know a few people who own the little ramekins that are needed to make and serve them, so it wasn't like I needed to go out and get 28 of them. So, once the decision was made, I knew I had to get a kitchen torch (no, I didn't do something stupid with the torch just read the whole thing and stop trying to guess). I went to Bed Bath and Beyond ( I think I even had a coupon!), and I picked one up, I came home and it wouldn't light. I read the directions a few times, and finally in small print I saw it said the fuel was not included. The next morning I went to Home Depot to pick up some Butane. After only a few tries, the torch was full and ready to flame!

Alright. Creme Brulee it will be! I found a really easy recipe online, and in order not to be embarrassed by a failed culinary experiment I made some test creme brulees a week in advance. My friend and I had a very nice tasting lunch as we tweaked various aspects of the caramelized sugar (plus she offered to make me crescent cookies dipped in chocolate, which she did and were gorgeous). Apparently, it wasn't tweaked enough, because I tried it in one size ramekin, and made it for the party in a smaller size, and so the sugar was a little too thick and was not as delicious and crackly perfect as the samples.

When we reached a point in the party when everyone was at the peak of their socializing we stopped it all for a quick poem from the kids, and a small speech from MBB. I stayed in the kitchen and began to torch the sugar on top of the creme brulees.

I will tell you another lesson I learned from this party. Don't plan a menu that has foods that must be prepared AT THAT MOMENT, when you are having 28 people. The gnocchi was delicious, but I was busy in the kitchen when my guests arrived. The creme brulee would have been better without all the pressure to torch so many of them. A lot of them ended up with too many scorched spots, and I definitely needed to be in a more relaxed mood when I did it. I wasn't.

I was actually nearing the very end of the torching process, and had just finished one of the last five when I saw some of the sugar puddling a bit. My first thought was that I should spread it out a little. So I turned off the torch and stuck my finger on the just caramelized sugar, and then reflexively stuck the same finger, now adorned with a burning hot piece of melted sugar into my mouth. At that point the sugar hardened immediately, and I was left with a very burnt left index finger, which has now blistered to about 1/4 of an inch above the surface of my finger and the size of a dime if a dime was oval.

Another lesson. You learn a lot here at IcebergCarwash! Don't touch burning hot sugar.

Being married to Superman, I was able to keep my finger in ice water while he finished cleaning up all the dishes after all the guests had left.

So to nutshell this post, I burnt my finger last night so it's making me type slower.