Crème Caramel  is a classic French dessert¹, also known as Flan, Caramel Custard and Caramel Pudding². Recipe taken from yani at myresipi , sorry yani I changed it’s name a bit, (original name : Caramel Cheese Pudding) cause when I read only cheese not cream cheese, I’ll usually imagine Cheddar or Gouda instead ^^.

Credit for Photographing to Kyrell.

1 http://www.melissamakesbread.com/2007/03/crme_caramel.html#more
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cr%C3%A8me_caramel

I made this for my best friend, he invited me for an Italian Pizza several days ago. Since we’ll not dine in, but take away instead, so I decided to made us some dessert. At first I just want to made another muffin, Banana Choc Muffins to be exact, but I was too lazy to search for some ripe banana, it was still too cold outside anyway ^^. Usually when I plan to bake with banana, I’ll bought it a week earlier to wait for it to ripe. So at last minute I found this recipe, it used cream cheese in place of double cream. I made this instead of the classic version, cause I bought  4 packs of cream cheese a week earlier, those were in sale, and I’ve been try to use it at every chances I got.

The reason for the love shape it’s simply because I didn’t have enough round shape ramekins. So no deeper meaning for that ^^. I used to have 6 ramekins, but 2 got broken and one still with a  friend, I still forgot to take it back. Since I didn’t want to make it in one big bowl, I cut my silicon muffin form to individual form, I can still used it to made muffins with it, only that now I need a tray to put in on.

Melisse Makes Bread made a video on how to the classic version here, according to her when making creme caramel,  for aluminium form it took only 25 minutes to bake, whereas ramekins took 40 minutes. But I baked it with these silicon form, it’s still didn’t set in 40 minutes, and when I tried to took it back to oven, my hand slipped, and some water got splash in, *shock*. I was already late, but didn’t want to come empty handed, so I try to spoon out the water as much as I can, stir the custard carefully not to mix the caramel, but only to mix in the remaining water (It’s clean water !).  I tried to bake it again for another 10 minutes, but since it was already back runny like in the beginning, I decided just to steam it. I’m not sure if there’s any different, but I knew using steam is faster than baking it with water bath method. So I steam it for 20 minutes, thanks god it’s beginning to set ^^. When baked, you need to let in set in fridge overnight, but mine seem almost ready.  While waiting for tram, it’s below than 0°C outside,  I could omit the step to chill it in the fridge ^^.

And thanks god when I transfer it on a plate, it was perfect,  you wouldn’t notice all the drama in order to make that ^^.  This recipe is definitely a keeper. It taste like cheesecake in pudding form ^^ . Most important, it doesn’t taste eggy at all.

Cream Cheese Crème Caramel
Recipe adapted from myresipi, yields about 600ml-650ml.

Ingredients

For Caramel :
100g sugar
3 Tbs Water

For Custard:
180 g Cream Cheese
70g Sugar
1 egg yolk
3 eggs
450g Milk (about 450ml)
1 tbs lemon juice (I used 1tsp Vanilla essence instead)

Direction :

1. Make the Caramel. Use the direction from WIkihow here or from the Video from Melissa Makes Bread here.
2. Pour the Caramel in the ramekins or a big pan. Make sure it cover all the bottom surface.
3. Beat cream cheese and sugar until well blended, add the egg yolk and the eggs one by one. Beat until well blended.
4. Heat the milk until almost boiling, remove from heat. Add a bit first of the hot milk into cream cheese mixture, mix well. Add the rest of the milk and lemon juice (or vanilla essence), mix until smooth.
5. Pour the mixture in the ramekins.
6. Put the ramekins in bigger pan, filled with water (water bath method). Bake it in a preheated oven at 160°C for 40-45 Minutes.
7. Chill it in the refrigerater for 4 hours or overnight.
8. To serve, put the bottom of the ramekin in hot water to melt it a bit, if it difficult to transfer onto a plate.