Earl Grey crème brûlée - grainy texture, solutions? Recipe from MC at Home.

Rickard_Modig_19323

The recipe is a simple cold infusion of Earl Grey (15g leaves for 300g liquid).

I've cooked it three times, the third time without infusing the liquid and the texture was perfect. It's a small sample size, but my hunch is that there's something about the tea that messes up the custard somehow. To be clear, the only variable I changed was removing the infusion step and that made it turn out great.

I've attached a picture. As you can see the color isn't great either and I'm thinking about scrapping the dish altogether if I can't get the texture to turn out smooth. Really would appreciate some insight into why it turned out so poor.

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xaviromas

I think the problem is de egg. If the temperature is higher than 85ºC the yolk becomes "solid", and that can be the grainy texture...

Rickard_Modig_19323

Thank you for the suggestion. However these brûlées were steamed in a combi-oven at 82 C. And as I mentioned, the unflavored variant, cooked the same way, turned out an amazing texture.

I'll post the full recipe from Modernist Cuisine at Home, I don't believe that's against the forum rules but if it is I apologize and understand if it'll have to be removed.

Cold infuse 15g of Earl Grey tea leaves with 150g milk and 150g heavy cream overnight. (I did it once overnight and once only four hours).

Sieve and reserve 200g infused liquid. Combine with 80g of egg yolks and 50g of sugar/honey (I tried both variants) and a pinch of salt. Blitz with a hand blender until sugar is completely dissolved.

Pour into ramekins, wrap with plastic, cook in a combi-oven at 82 degrees and full steam to an internal temperature of 80 degrees, about an hour.

I can't really see any other possibility than something about the tea makes the texture go wonky. Maybe if I tried another tea or a different method of infusion. However the cold infusion was recommended by the same source (MC at Home) and you'd think they would get it right.

Pepijn_31744

Not sure what can cause it, did you use whole leaves as the recipe suggests?

Rickard_Modig_19323

Hmm, I believe so. I used loose-leaf Earl Grey, regular black tea from the supermarket. Local brand but probably similar to Twinnings, Lipton etc.

I've thought about trying a hot-infusion (3 minutes at 90 C/195 F perhaps) and seeing if there's a difference.

If you google recipes for Earl Grey crème brûlee you can find quite a few but none that I've found mentions texture problems. Maybe most people don't find it that bad but I tried it on my colleagues and they agreed the texture was noticeably inferior.

chris.k32

Rickard, I tried the recipe (Creme Brulee from Modernist Cuisine at Home, using cold Earl Grey Infusion) last week, and it turned out just fine for me. I used regular 35% whipping cream and Twinings loose-leaf earl grey tea leaves. For cooking, I used a Sous-Vide Supreme set to 81.5ºC. The custards reached the target 80ºC within 40 min, so I removed them before the suggested hour.

So unless it's something funny with your particular tea leaves, I'm inclined to believe it's a temperature issue. How accurate is your combi-oven? Do you have a thermometer to test the temperature of the custards?

As an experiment you could make a batch of regular/plain, a batch of earl grey, and cook them simultaneously. That way you would be able to rule out difference in cooking environments...