Why does my creme brulee curdle

Sounds to me like you had the cream too hot and probably added it to the eggs too fast which would scramble or cook the eggs making for a cottage cheese effect. If the cream itself were the problem you would have noticed it curdling when you heated it and before you added it to the eggs.

Did you cook the cream containing the eggs too long? When you burned the sugar on top did the cream come to a boil? All of these point to overcooking the cream with the eggs in it. Quoting Siduri, "Did you cook the cream containing the eggs too long? When making creme anglaise after tempering the eggs, the pan is returned to the stove to thicken stirring constantly of course.

At least the way I make it. Click to expand You must log in or register to reply here. Popular Threads. What did you have for dinner? Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Supper -- what are you cooking? Creme brulee is definitely one of the more decadent, luxurious desserts out there, while still being widely available. You need more if you want to add some additional flavour more on that later. Each ingredient plays a crucial role:.

Controlling these well is the crux to a good creme. A final creme brulee should be super soft and smooth. In order to do so it is important that the sugar fully dissolves in the cream. This is why most creme brulee recipes start by slightly heating your cream to dissolve that sugar. You could also use icing sugar here, that dissolves even more easily, thanks to the smaller particle size and larger surface area. In order to transform that liquid cool creme brulee mixture into a wobbly slightly firm creme brulee, you need the power of egg yolks.

The egg yolks are what make or break your creme brulee: undercook them and the creme brulee will still be liquid, over cook them and they might curdle and split. The molecules in the egg yolk that are the cause behind all of this are the proteins. Egg yolk is made up of mostly moisture, fat and egg yolk proteins. By heating the proteins in the egg yolk they will unfold themselves slightly. This way they are able to bind water and thicken the creme brulee mixture.

Heat the proteins too much though and they will unfold even further and loose their structure, causing them to push out water of their texture instead of binding it. Therefore, never add your egg yolks to the hot mixture of cream and sugar. The high temperatures will cook the yolks before they even have a chance to adjust. Always cool the cream mixture down slightly, or pour it into your egg yolks slowly while whisking to even out the temperature.

When you bake creme brulee in the oven, you have to consider heat transfer phenomena. The outside of the creme brulee will heat up more quickly than the inside. If the temperature difference is too large, the outside might over cook before the inside has time to cook.

To prevent this, you will often see that recipes call for baking the creme brulee in a tray of hot water. This way, the outside of the trays cannot become warmer than C, the temperature of boiling water, limiting the temperature differences and giving a more even cook.

These are the most common mistakes people make with this iconic dessert. Photo: Alex Lau. If you plan on making it at home, you'll need to invest in a few. Additionally, and most importantly, the whole point of this dessert is the expansive caramelized crust of sugar. The wide and shallow ramekin allows for optimal sugar-to-pudding radio, and a more impressive crust. That's why egg yolks, rather than whole eggs, are used, explains Rick Martinez , BA's associate food editor.

Whites help set pudding, giving it a firmer texture. For this dish, use just the yolks and save the whites for another recipe, like meringue. Water is the enemy of perfectly smooth pudding.