The Very First Cinnamon and Truffle Event!

Truffle is with me in Davidson, NC and we are having a marvelous time! The dessert lesson at the club on Thursday night was a smash hit. There was a small group of seven that congregated at the back of the hot and busy kitchen at the country club and the Chef taught us four dishes: Creme Brulee, Goats Cheese Creme Brulee, Chocolate Souffle, and Bread Pudding.

Here's the recipe for the Creme Brulee.

Ingredients:

1 quart heavy cream

1 vanilla bean, split and scraped (vanilla beans are stored in bags of sugar...)

1 cup vanilla sugar (sugar from bags in which beans are stored...)

1 tbsp vanilla essence

6 egg yolks

2 quarts hot water

Turbinado (aka raw) sugar for browning

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 F.

Mix cream, vanilla bean & essence in medium saucepan or aluminum bowl over heat and heat. Remove, cover and allow to sit for 15 mins.

In another bowl, whisk sugar and yolks until blended. Add cream a little at a time, stirring continuously. Pour into 6 (7-8 oz) ramekins. Place ramekins into large cake pan and place in oven. Pour enough hot water onto pan to come halfway up sides of ramekins. Bake 40-45 mins - until brulee is set, but still "trembling." When you shake it, it wobbles like a loose belly that has feasted on lots of creme brulee...

Remove ramekins (careful of hot water on pan!!!) and refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to 3 days.

Remove from fridge 30 mins before browning sugar on top. Spread turbinado sugar evenly on top and torch away with blow torch (purchase from Lowes Home Improvement). Sit for 5 mins before serving.

Extra tip: Burn off bubbles with torch when poured into ramekins to prevent skin from forming.

Enjoy the dessert with dinner party friends and tell them about CinnamonandTruffle.com.

Dear friends who attended this first C&T event, I would love to get your perspective of that night! Other readers, please comment with your versions and let's get a compilation of tips on making great creme brulee!

Best,

Cinnamon

Plane Food

Before I report on the wonders organised by Cinnamon for my visit, could I just take a moment to talk about airplane food? Seriously, here I am setting off on an exciting adventure – Carolinian barbeque, French crème bruléed by Le Chef and what not else – but before I can get to all of that, I have to be put through a trial. Panicky taxi driver to Victoria station, being asked for extra ID in the check-in queue (“purely routine”, she assured me twice – that’s what made it so suspicious…), and a Cantonese wayang diva at the check-in desk. When the meal service started, having laughed and cried at this comic strip that describes all too well the dining options on Transatlantic flights, I expected “beef or pasta” to look not very different from each other. However, I was surprised.

The last time I flew this airline, the pasta was overcooked and limp, drowned in a watery tomato sauce, and served alongside sugar-high inducing processed carbohydrates. This time, though, the pasta looked attractively liked it had been cooked in an oven, and the beef was juicy (and also free of fat and those weird tendony things that you normally bite into). Both dishes even came with – gasp – a salad! So, things looked like they’d improved. Until I took a bite into the carrot. I should’ve known when my husband said he was putting the salad aside for it to defrost…

So, the veggies didn’t pass my standards. But if you’ve read about my vegetable addiction before, you might suspect that I’d have come prepared. Last night, instead of going to bed early to recover from my cold, I spent a fair bit of time sautéing carrots, courgettes, asparagus and peppers, all in a little bit of olive oil. Together with some brown bread and a fillet of soy sauce salmon from Dr Oz’s book, I’m pretty much covered for this flight. Yes, I’m a bit sleep deprived from all the prep last night, but eating this way has its advantages. First, I’m not feeling overwhelmed by salt in an environment that’s pretty dehydrating as it is - I read recently that airlines add a lot of salt to the food, because taste buds don’t function so well at high altitudes, and they want passengers to think the food tastes good (although you wouldn’t have thought that was an objective airlines had in mind...). Secondly, I don’t have to wait the hours it usually takes the meal service to start. And finally, I feel like, with the prelude of all these veggies, I can enjoy that delicious Southern barbeque and crème brulee with that little bit less guilt!

Can’t wait, Cinnamon!

Love

Truffle