Embarrassing Moment #10- The Creme Brulee Story

The first year Bobby and I were married we had a Christmas party and invited our good friends Mary and Jason and Joe and Suzy. We were all experimenting with different recipes and we put together a fancy holiday menu. Mary made an impressive apple-filled pork roast, Suzy brought some delicious side dishes, and I was in charge of dessert. I could not decide on one dessert, so I ended up preparing two, which saved me in the end since one of these desserts ended up making it into the hall of fame of my embarassing moments.

I found this recipe on epicurious for Black and White Creme Brulee. It was chocolate custard on the bottom half of the ramekin and vanilla custard on top. The recipe called for bittersweet chocolate. I was pretty new to cooking at this point and when I couldn't find bittersweet chocolate on the grocery store shelves, I figured unsweetened chocolate was the same as bittersweet and bought that.

So we have a lovely dinner- everything tasted fabulous- and then after we played games, I served dessert. I thought it would be fun for everyone to use the kitchen torch and "brulee" their own "creme." So Suzy and Joe start eating theirs first and all of the sudden I can hear them giggling and well, uh, gagging a little bit. Well that can't be good, I thought to myself, so I hurried over and grabbed one of the desserts to find out for myself what was going on with my creme brulee and tasted the vanilla layer on top: creamy, sweet, and delicious! Then I go for the bottom layer: uh-oh, this tastes like poop! I'm serious, too. It was disgusting; the flavor paired with the custardy consistency was just too much and all the creme brulee went right into the kitchen sink. Luckily I had prepared an extra dessert. The Sachertorte mit Schlagobers (with whipped cream) saved the day!

Before I realized my mistake, I logged on and wrote a review of the recipe, which is maybe even more embarrassing. Click here. I'm the cook from Provo.