Leite Creme
Portuguese Custard with a Burnt Sugar Crust
A soft custard cooked on the hob, not in the oven, poured into shallow dishes and finished with sugar burnt to a brittle sheet. It looks like crème brûlée and is lighter: milk, not cream, thickened with yolks and a little cornflour.
It is on dessert lists across the country. The Portuguese recipe read heats the milk with part of the sugar and vanilla, whisks it into yolks, sugar and cornflour, cooks it until thick and caramelises sugar on top.
Ingredients
Ingredients
- 700 ml whole milk
- 1 vanilla pod, split, or 2 strips of lemon peel
- 200 g caster sugar
- 40 g cornflour
- 8 large egg yolks
- About 6 tbsp caster sugar, for the top
Method
- Heat the milk Put the milk in a heavy saucepan with the vanilla or lemon peel and about a third of the sugar. Heat until it just comes to the boil, then take it off the heat.
- Mix the yolks Whisk the remaining sugar with the cornflour in a large bowl, then whisk in the yolks until smooth and pale.
- Cook the custard Pour the hot milk onto the yolks in a thin stream, whisking all the time. Return everything to the pan and cook over a medium-low heat for 5 to 8 minutes, whisking constantly, until the custard thickens and one or two slow bubbles break the surface. It should coat the back of a spoon heavily.
- Chill Remove the vanilla or peel. Pour into six shallow dishes, press baking paper onto the surface to stop a skin forming and chill for at least 2 hours.
- Burn the sugar Just before serving, sprinkle 1 tbsp of sugar evenly over each custard. Melt and brown it with a blowtorch, or under a very hot grill for 2 to 3 minutes, until it is dark amber. Leave for 2 minutes for the crust to harden.
Food safety
Melted sugar is far hotter than boiling water and sticks to skin. Stand the dishes on a metal tray, keep fingers well away and let the caramel set before serving.
Bring the custard to a bubble. If the cornflour is not cooked out, the custard tastes floury and may thin as it stands.