CREAM CATALANA OR CREAM BRULEE

Cream Catalana or Cream Brulee

Cream brulee also known  Burnt Cream, Crema Catalana, or Trinity Cream is a dessert consisting of a rich custard base topped with a contrasting layer of hard caramel. It is normally served cold.
The custard base is traditionally flavored with vanilla, but is also sometimes flavored with lemon or orange(zest), rosemary, chocolate, coffee, liqueurs, green tea, pistachio, coconut, or other fruit.

History

The exact origins are uncertain.
The earliest known reference of cream brulee as we know it today appears in Francois Massialot's 1691 cook book, and the French name was used in the English translation of this book, but the 1731 edition of Massioalot's Cuisinier roil et bourgeois change the name of the same recipe from cream brulee to cream anglaise. In the early eighteenth century, the dessert was call Burnt Cream in English.

In Britain, a version of cream brulee (known locally as Trinity Cream or Cambridge Burnt Cream) was  introduced at Trinity College Cambridge in 1879 with the college arms "impressed on top of the cream with a branding iron". The story goes that the recipe was from an Aberdeenshire country house and was offered by an undergraduate to the college cook, who turned it down. However, when the student became a Fellow, he managed to convince the cook.

Cream Catalana

In Catalana language: Cream Catalana, Cream Cremada/ Burnt Cream, or Cream de Sant Josep, is a Catalan Dish similar to Cream Brulee. It is traditionally served on Saint Joseph's Day, March 19, although nowadays it is consumed at all times of year. The custard is flavored with lemon or orange zest, and cinnamon. The sugar in crema catalana is traditionally caramelized under an iron broiler or with a specially made iron, not with a flame.

Cream brulee is usually served in individual ramekins. Discs of caramel may be prepare separately and put on top just before serving, or the caramel may be formed directly on top of the custard, immediately before serving. To do this, sugar is sprinkled onto the custard, the caramelized under a broiler/salamander, with a butane torch or by flambeing a hard liquor on it-Wikipedia