Crème brûlée not setting

I've tried twice to make crème brûlée following the ChefSteps recipe. I'm using mason jars from the dollar store that hold approx. one cup. The custard has only set on the edges of the jars (bottom and sides), not in the middle or on the top. I'm certain I used the correct quantities of ingredients (except turning the salt down a notch). I progressively chilled them moving from water that wasn't quite as hot as the cooking bath, to warm water, to room temperature, to cold, then to the ice bath to get as cool as fast as possible without shattering the jars.

My only guess is that the custard isn't getting cooked all the way through in the water bath, but the first batch I did the hour recommended. The second batch was closer to two hours, in an effort to ensure that they cook through.

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Comments

Chris_Young_80640

Luke, could you post a photo of your mason jars? My suspicion is that your larger mason jars an increasing the required cooking time by as much as 4X our suggested cooking time, rather than the 2X you attempted. The reason is that the time required for heat to penetrate the center goes up roughly by the square of the thickness. Thus, if you're jars are say twice as large as ours, a reasonable starting point would be to assume four times the suggested cooking time, not twice the cooking time. This is why crème brûlée is traditionally prepared in a wide, but relatively flat container.

terribleperson

I'm going to try a four hour cook for one jar at around 1 AM EST Sunday (slightly more than one hour from now)

Chris_Young_80640

If you have an instant read thermometer then I suggest you probe the core temperature of the custard from time to time during the cook to see that the center is reaching the same temperature as the bath. The only thing that really matters for getting a custard to set is that the core temperature gets hot enough to denature the egg proteins that set the gel. It's also worth mentioning that sugar increases the denature temperature for egg proteins, meaning a higher temperature is required to get them to set.