Butterscotch Pot de Creme, Gianduja Macarons and a Farewell

Today I said goodbye to my parents who have been with us for almost two months. Time flies, doesn’t it? People ask me how I manage to find time to blog after just giving birth. Well, the answer is my parents. They have been incredible help during this transition time, trying to get adjusted to having M., still tending to J., managing small projects and continue blogging. I could have not done it without them.

As I was watching them walk away, I realized how having children has made me appreciate them much more. It might be just age and the process of growing up. I don’t know why, but I do.

We had freezing temperatures in Florida all last week. It was actually wonderful as I love cold and sunny days. We stayed home, cooked and baked more than ever. We made arroz con leche two days in a row as it disappears faster than what we can make it.

I woke up at 2am one night, a bit restless and unable to fall back to sleep. I got out of bed, turned my laptop on and started browsing through Shauna’s recipe index looking for some gluten-free dessert recipes to make. As soon as my eyes read butterscotch, I thought “that’s it”. The following morning, I pulled out the eggs, cream, muscovado and demerara sugar and made these butterscotch pot de creme inspired by this recipe.

Instead of caramelizing the top, we sprinkled some hazelnut praline crunch and accompanied it with gianduja macarons we had made a few days earlier.

Butterscotch Pot de Creme

makes about 8 6 oz ramekins

500 ml heavy cream
225 ml whole milk
1 vanilla bean, split and seeded
1/2 tsp fleur de sel
160 grams muscovado sugar
80 grams demerara sugar
8 egg yolks

Place the heavy cream, whole milk, muscovado, fleur de sel and vanilla bean in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Keep it hot.

In a separate medium saucepan, make a dry caramel with the demerara sugar. Sprinkle half of it on the bottom of the pan spacing it evenly. When it starts to melt, sprinkle in the rest of the sugar and let it melt and turn to a light caramel.

Deglaze the caramel with the hot cream mixture. Be careful because it will bubble up. Whisk to make sure there are no large chunks of undissolved caramel. If there are, keep the pot on the heat for a bit to melt them.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks together and temper the hot caramel and cream mixture into them. Strain the custard through a fine sieve.

Pour the custard into the ramekins. Place the ramekins on a sheet pan and bring it to the oven that’s been preheated to 300F. Pour hot water on the sheet pan to make a water bath. Bake until the center of the ramekins is set. Cool and refrigerate.