Vegan Creme Brulee

Hey guys! Happy Friday!

July 27th was National Creme Brulee Day, and, while I usually scoff at “food holidays,” when you say creme brulee anything I perk up and cock my head to the side like a dog hearing the words, “wanna go for a walk?!” So, I decided to try out a vegan creme brulee recipe and see if it could rival the non-vegan versions I’ve come to love and adore.

Non-vegan creme brulee is an animal factory of high-fat dairy cream, egg yolks & sugar, and it generally has nearly 500 calories and more than 40g fat per serving [stats via Hungry Girl]. The recipe I used is from VegWeb here and it calls for silken tofu, soymilk and sugar; it has about 300 calories and 6.5g fat per LARGE serving. I’ve reproduced the recipe below with notes.

How did it look?

You’ll see it didn’t have that yellow custard color of typical creme brulee and the sugar doesn’t look as pretty as it might’ve had I used a creme bruelee torch, but c’est le vie — if it tastes great, I don’t care what it looks like!

Did I enjoy it?

Damn skippy. The boyfriend ate three ramekins-full last night. Some of his descriptions include, “it tastes like soggy graham crackers” (that’s a good thing!); & “…like whole-wheat flan.” Do with that what you will!

Vegan Creme Brulee (From VegWeb)
4 servings (VegWeb claims 6; I made 4)

Ingredients

• 1 lb. silken tofu — I used West Soy organic brand
• 4 tablespoon vanilla vegan soymilk
• 3/4 cup vegan sugar plus 2 tablespoon sugar (reserved)
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 tablespoon cornstarch
• dash Kosher salt or sea salt

Directions

• Pre-heat oven to 375.
• Press tofu until a little, not a lot, of water leaches out.
• Put tofu and all other ingredients (except reserved vegan sugar) into a blender and blend until a smooth, creamy texture has been created. The texture should be that of a thin pudding.
• Pour into custard cups or a pie tin and bake in a water bath until the tofu mixture browns a little and a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean (this actually took me about 40 minutes!)
• Remove mixture from water bath, spread reserved vegan sugar on top, and place under a hot broiler until the vegan sugar melts and browns.
• Allow vegan sugar topping to harden.
• Serve immediately or cool in the fridge. Fresh berries are a nice addition.
• Approx. nutritional info. per serving (1 of 4): 297.88 calories, 6.49g fat, 13.38 mg sodium, <1g fiber, 42.44g sugars, 10.4g protein
• According to the Barefoot Contessa –the best way to achieve the creme brulee sugar crust without a creme brulee torch is to put the oven to 500 degrees and put the ramekins on the broil rack for 30 seconds. I did this.

I’ve read on other blogs that using cashews as part of the filling gives it an even closer textural resemblance to non-vegan creme brulee, so I’ll have to try that next time! Also, the ramekins I used are pretty large, so I’d guess you could use smaller ones and break up the serving size for less-cal treats (I just split mine with the boyf).

I hope you have a wonderful day! I’m all caught-up on freelance projects, so the boyf and I are taking a vacation day. We’re going to eat vegan food in Santa Monica and, later, go see Dinner with Schmucks!

Ever made your own creme brulee? Do you tend to invest in cooking gadgets, like a creme brulee torch, for example, or do you just wing-it? Plans for the weekend?

<3,

The Cranky One

Tags: barefoot contessa, creme brulee, vegan desserts