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By Root 648 0

for each grain to caramelize, the next batch dazzled, with a glassy, shiny shell protecting the cool cream below. Unless someone gives you a torch, don’t make this recipe. I’ve tried caramelizing crème brûlée under the broiler, as some books advise, and it doesn’t work.

Make it or buy it? If you have a torch, make it.

Hassle: It requires a surprising amount of patience and hand strength to torch these crèmes.

Cost comparison: Less than $5.00 to make six crèmes brûlées. I doubt you can buy a single crème brûlée in a restaurant for less than $5.00. (It’s not a restaurant, but there is a street cart in San Francisco where you can buy crème brûlée for $4.00.)

2 cups heavy cream

5 large egg yolks

⅓ cup sugar, plus more for sprinkling

Pinch of kosher salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees F.

2. In a medium saucepan over moderate heat, warm the cream until it is on the verge of a boil. Remove from the heat.

3. In a large bowl, whisk the egg yolks and sugar until creamy and thick. Whisk in the salt and vanilla. Whisk in the cream. Strain the mixture into six 4- to 6-ounce ramekins or crème brûlée dishes.

4. Place on a cookie sheet and slip the sheet into the oven. Cook for 30 to 40 minutes, until the crèmes are mostly firm, with just a little jiggle in the middle.

5. Cover with plastic wrap and chill the ramekins for at least four hours. This is essential: Don’t cheat.

6. Sprinkle the top of each crème evenly with granulated sugar. Hold the flame of a propane torch close to the sugar—about ½ inch away—and heat the sugar until it melts and browns. Repeat with the rest of the desserts. Serve immediately.

Serves 6

FLOURLESS CHOCOLATE CAKE

At some point in the 1980s, flour all but vanished from chocolate desserts. Today every restaurant serves some kind of flourless dark chocolate dessert, whether it’s called a budino or a decadence or a volcano or a torte. These cakes are quite easy to make. I’ve made a lot of them. For many years my mother didn’t eat wheat flour, and for her fifty-sixth birthday I baked five flourless chocolate cakes and we had a tasting. The winner was a cake from the Italian island of Capri made with walnuts; the loser was a gruesome Spanish cake from a nineteenth-century recipe, made with orange flower water. I’ve messed with the Capri cake over the years and this is how I make it now, without any walnuts at all. It’s probably not even a Capri cake anymore, but it’s very easy and you can make a whole cake for not much more than you’d pay for a single slice in a restaurant.

Make it or buy it? Make it.

Hassle: Moderate

Cost comparison: To bake this cake costs about $10.00. To buy a single slice of a flourless chocolate cake at a restaurant or bakery costs at the very least $5.00.

½ pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, plus more for the pan

All-purpose flour, for the pan

½ pound bittersweet chocolate, chopped

5 eggs, separated

1 cup dark brown sugar, packed

1 tablespoon bourbon

½ teaspoon salt

Whipped cream; omit the sugar) or crème fraîche (recipe follows), for serving

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 9-inch springform pan. Tap out the excess flour.

2. Melt the chocolate and butter together in the top of a double boiler. Cool slightly.

3. Beat the egg whites until stiff. Scoop them into a clean bowl or onto a plate. In the bowl where you beat the egg whites (you don’t need to rinse it), beat the egg yolks until they thicken. Gradually add the sugar, bourbon, and salt and continue beating until the mixture is creamy. Add the chocolate mixture.

4. Fold the egg whites very gently into the batter.

5. Pour and scrape the airy batter into the pan. Bake for 40 minutes, until the cake is puffed and starting to crack. Cool to room temperature.

6. Serve with unsweetened whipped cream or crème fraîche.

Serves 12

CRÈME FRAÎCHE

You can’t use powdered buttermilk or soured milk to make crème fraîche; you need real buttermilk, from