Crème brûlée (from Hervé Cuisine)

Cut the vanilla bean in half and extract all the seeds by sliding a knife on the cut halves. Skip this step if you're using not using a vanilla bean.

Pour the liquid cream in a pot, together with the empty vanilla bean and heat it gently to extract the aromas from the bean. If you're using vanilla extract, I would skip this step. If you're using powdered vanilla, follow the steps with a few pinches of vanilla powder.

Meanwhile, beat the yolks with the sugar and the vanilla seeds (if you're using vanilla extract or powder, add some instead) until the mix whitens. Try not to incorporate too much air in the mix, as this will make the cream less smooth !

Preheat the oven at 100°C.

Pour in the COOLED liquid cream progressively through a strainer (not necessary if you're not using vanilla beans) in the yolk-sugar mix while mixing. It is very important to wait until the liquid cream has cooled down because otherwise the yolks with start to foam, thus making the cream less smooth (still edible and good though, so don't throw everything away if the mix is a bit foamy).

Pour the cream into as many ramequins as servings.

Cook the creams in the oven at 100°C for an hour.

Get the creams out of the oven. The consistency should be similar to that of a soft, trembling pudding.

Let them cool down on a rack, then in the fridge for at least four hours. You can prepare them in one or two days of advance without a problem.

When you are ready to eat them, get them out of the fridge. Spill some sugar on top (a bit less than a tablespoon) and caramelize the sugar with a kitchen torch. To caramelize the tops efficiently without heating the cream underneath too much (and ruining its texture), the best is to first melt the sugar by moving the torch back and forth at a relatively low power, THEN caramelize the liquefied sugar as fast as possible by torching it with a high power setting. Ultimately, just do your best and most importantly : do not burn yourself !