COOKS: Tofu Avocado Creme Brûlée

Hello! ☼

We're beginning to see fresh cow grass sprouting already, wonderful mmm. Grey and rainy days always get me down but this time you know the flora and fauna are rejoicing, lots of good energy. Decided to make a simple little dessert to get some sweetness in my system because school's just painful.. 

This post is a little late because the wifi in my house just failed on all of us.. Or maybe it was cause I pushed the wrong button trying to reset it. Could be one or the other *shrugs* 

I was actually thinking of scrapping this post but now that i'm stuck at home eating porridge because i'm down with stomach flu and the rest of the family are in Swatow being awkward in a KTV lounge (awkward family gatherings you see), well, I figured finishing up this post would be more productive than watching back to back episodes of Oddities on the Science Channel. 

So here's my healthy, or should I say healthier, version of a Creme Brûlée. I think it does a good job when you're craving something creamy and rich, no baking required but you do need a blow torch that you can get from a cooking supplies store, a good one would be the ToTT Store at Dunearn Rd. I got mine from a wholesale metal smithing supplies store but I think it'll be easier to locate the former. 

First for some photos during the process ~

Brûlée!

Creamy Creme Brûlée with half the calories! I made that up, but I'm pretty sure my guess isn't too far off.

Here's my recipe for 4 adequately filled teacups of Creme Brûlée 

What you'll need:

• Blender
• Blow torch
• 4 small heat resistant cups (you can use ramekins)
• 2 ripe avocados (peeled pitted and diced)
• 150g of silkened tofu (half a regular pack of silkened tofu from the supermarket)
• 1 Tbsp of condensed milk
• Juice of a small lime (mainly to keep the avocados from oxidising)
• 1 Tsp vanilla extract
• Approx. 3 Tbsp milk
• Approx. 4 Tbsp sugar (for brûlée-ing) 

1. Put your avocados, silkened tofu, condensed milk and juice of a small lime into the blender and whizz away. You may notice it doesn't blend very well so stop blending and add in your milk a table spoon at a time, just enough for the whole mixture to start blending smoothly. When the whole thing becomes less chunky and gunky and more smoothie-like, add in your vanilla essence and give it a last round of blending to get the vanilla essence incorporated with the mixture. 

2. Pour the avocado mixture equally into 4 heat resistant cups and try to even out the surface with a small spoon, this makes it easier to brûlée/torch it later on. Put them in the fridge for about 2 hours to cool and get a little firmer. Try not to use cling wrap at this point of time as that traps the moisture and that makes it difficult for you to properly caramelise the sugar later on. 

3. After about 2 hours, remove your cups from the fridge. Pour on a layer of sugar, enough to cover the entire surface of your avocado mixture. Quickly now, turn on your blow torch and heat up the sugar, keeping the flame about 2 inches away from the surface. Go over the entire surface until the sugar starts to bubble and turn to a golden caramel colour, then turn off the blow torch. Keep in mind to work on one cup at a time, if you leave the sugar on the avocado mixture for too long before torching it, the sugar dissolves into the mixture and it won't give you that crunchy top no matter how long you torch it. 

And that's it! Really simple if you have all the equipment. Now back to slothing in bed, feeling a little light headed at the moment. 

再见