Today it’s my wonderful husband‘s birthday. Not a particularly special age, but a very special man.

In our house, it’s almost always Bob who makes dinner. In fact, I think I could count on both hands how many times I’ve taken a turn while we’ve lived here because we cook the vast majority of our meals from scratch and Bob is very quick at putting meals together whereas I am distinctly not. The usual exception to the “Bob cooks” rule is birthdays and Father’s day because really, that’s only fair. I asked my dearly beloved what he wanted and he told me, “lasagne and crème brûlée”. Easy enough, I thought, before remembering that I also needed to make a birthday cake. Hmm. I had decided on a pavlova because Bob had mentioned in passing that he really liked it but I had NO IDEA it was going to involve so much work! Luckily for me he changed his mind about dinner and decided he wanted pizza instead so I didn’t have to spend the entire day in the kitchen!

The most time-consuming and annoying part of this entire process was having to separate nine eggs. I hate separating eggs but luckily this time I managed all nine without breaking any yolks. Hoorah! Following this pavlova recipe I made the meringue first, put it in the oven for the alloted time and opened the oven as recommended to allow the meringue to cool down and dry out before realising that it was only cooked on the outside. I turned it over and put it back into the oven for another hour but I suspect my error was that the egg whites weren’t whipped firm enough before I shaped the meringue (perhaps worth noting here that I used nine regular sized egg whites from our own hens and not the nine large whites called for in the recipe). Delia Smith recommends baking your meringue the day before and leaving it in the oven overnight to cool and dry out, I may do that next time.

In the meantime, I was extremely happy with how the crème brûlée worked out! I made it after I put the meringue into the oven and it was easy as pie. The one aspect I wasn’t happy with is that our grill isn’t really good enough to caramelise sugar so I’m going to have to get my hands on a little kitchen blowtorch. Which seems kind of pointless when I can use it on one thing that I don’t make very often!

Recipe – Lemon Raspberry crème brûlée (makes 8 )

750ml double cream
Grated peel of one lemon
170g caster sugar
9 egg yolks
2 tsps vanilla extract
pinch salt

8 tsps brown sugar
punnet raspberries
Chambord or crème de cassis (optional)

Preheat your oven to gas mark 4/180C. Mix the lemon peel with the cream, put in a saucepan and heat until the cream is simmering. Meanwhile whisk the egg yolk and caster sugar until thick – using a handheld electric whisk this took roughly two minutes for me – then add the hot cream gradually. Take your time at this juncture – I just about redecorated my kitchen at this stage! Add the vanilla extract and salt, then set your custard aside.

Get the largest roasting dish you can find which will fit in your oven and put eight ramekins in it before filling the dish with boiling water to roughly half the height of your ramekins. Pour your custard into the ramekins through a sieve to remove the lemon peel then carefully lift your roasting dish into the oven. Bake for 55 mins-1 hour before taking them out of the oven. Chill uncovered until your custard is firm which will take at least three hours.

About an hour before you plan to serve your crème brûlée, put your ramekins on a baking tray and sprinkle 1 tsp of brown sugar over each one. Put under the grill (or use your blowtorch at this juncture) until the sugar has melted and browned. Put back into the fridge to harden. Put your raspberries into a bowl and add enough chambord or cassis to let your raspberries soak then leave for the rest of the hour. Spoon your raspberry mixture onto your ramekins immediately before serving.

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