Hello Bakers,
I am the recipe whisperer - I have nearly all of them from my long career at Le Cordon Bleu. And the most requested recipes from former colleagues and students is this one - chocolate pot de creme from the old Baking Two recipe packet. It’s so good and the texture - amazing!
In those days, culinary students had baking classes for 12 weeks! And this pot de creme appeared in the custard and cookie week.
Full disclosure - I did add a little vanilla and converted it into grams. This recipe works with any good quality chocolate. I used Trader Joes Pound Plus, semisweet.
This is a small batch recipe - it will fill three 4 ounce ramekins - but can always be baked in smaller ramekins or dishes. Make sure to shorten the cooking time if using smaller dishes. And it can be doubled.
Chocolate Pot de Creme
Equipment: ramekins, 13X9” pan or larger for the water bath, saucepan, scale, teaspoons, whisk, spatula, 2 med/large bowls, strainer.
Pot de Creme MEP
Ingredients:
227g milk
85g cream
1 egg (50g)
2 egg yolks (36g)
57g sugar
6g (1 teaspoon vanilla extract)
113g semisweet chocolate - chips and chopped
Garnish: sweetened whipped cream - Creme Chantilly
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees
Melt the chocolate over a bain marie or in the microwave and cool.
In a medium/large bowl whisk together egg, egg yolks, sugar and vanilla until smooth and light.
Add the melted chocolate to the eggs and sugar. Mix until smooth.
Chocolate and egg - mixed until smooth
Scald the milk and cream and temper in the milk and cream (add 1/2, mix and add the other half) to the chocolate mixture.
Strain and pour into ramekins, fill with hot tap halfway up the sides of the ramekins.
Bake for 30 minutes and check - on average it can take 40+ minutes. The pot de creme will not be liquidity but will have a jello like consistency. I used to tell students “bake it until it jiggles like jello not ripple like soup.”
Remove from water bath, place on a rack and cool for 15 minutes - then put plastic on top of the ranekins and chill for several hours or overnight.
Garnish and serve. Pot de creme can be made up to two days in advance