Cooking time for creme brulee in one large dish???

Crème brûlée custard batter (appareil) is best baked the day after you make it. Custards like this need time to settle, marry and infuse.

If I change the diameter of a container, I let it bake a few minutes more, yes, but I also might drop the temp. 325 is too high in my opinion. I might bake at 275 or 300.

I set dish in a large, deep sided container, pour in hot tap water just barely to 1/2 way up side of ramekin, tightly cover container with two layers of taught plastic wrap, set in over slowly/gently, and set first timer for 20 min. When I check in on it after 20m is up, I BARELY touch edge of water bath container. The more you jiggle the custard dish, the more you upset the "set."

I might check custard, like this, every 10m until it's ALMOST done, and then I would check every three minutes. Remember - a custard is done when the middle just barely moves when pan is touched.

Most crème brûlée I've eaten is over baked. The egg always knows the impatient baker.

As soon as I know my custard is set, I slowly take it out of oven onto cooling rack, and IMMEDIATELY puncture the plastic top. *Careful - a steam burn is a serious offense.

CB should rest at room temp for at least an hour before getting refrigerated, and it should be brûléed RIGHT before you serve it.

Found this, a few years late:
http://www.post-gazette.com/life/recipes/2009/02/12/Recipes-Creme-brulee/stories/200902120345

Classic Creme Brulee

PG tested

This recipe is a favorite in the McKay household, and it's so easy.

-- Gretchen McKay

3 cups heavy cream
1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise, or 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
6 large egg yolks
1/3 cup granulated sugar
Pinch of salt
3 tablespoons turbinado sugar, such as Sugar in the Raw

Put a rack in middle of oven and preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Pour cream into a 2-quart heavy saucepan. Using tip of a knife, scrape seeds from vanilla bean, if using, into cream and add pod (if using vanilla extract, do not add it yet). Heat cream over moderate heat until hot but not boiling; remove from heat and discard pod.

Whisk together yolks, granulated sugar and salt in a medium bowl until well combined. Add hot cream in a slow stream, whisking constantly until combined. Pour custard through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl and whisk in vanilla extract, if using. Ladle custard into ramekins.

Arrange ramekins in a roasting pan and add enough boiling water to pan to reach halfway up sides of ramekins. Bake until custards are just set, 25 to 30 minutes. With tongs, transfer custards to a rack to cool, then refrigerate, uncovered, for at least 4 hours. Custards can be refrigerated for up to 2 days (cover after the first 4 hours); pat the tops gently with paper towels before sprinkling with sugar and caramelizing.

Just before serving, sprinkle turbinado sugar evenly over custards. Move blowtorch flame evenly back and forth close to sugar until sugar is caramelized. Let stand until sugar is hardened, 3 to 5 minutes.

Serves 6.

-- "The Gourmet Cookbook" edited by Ruth Reichl (Houghton Mifflin, 2004)

Great! Thank you both. I do plan on using a shallow ceramic dish and the water bath like I normally would. I just needed some opinions on the baking time for confidence!!! I am short on time this weekend so I don't want to risk needing a do-over.

It does work well. As Amanda says, plan for it to take a good 10 minutes longer, and I'd suggest a good ceramic baking dish. Be sure to bake it in a water bath, as you would the conventional one (sorry, I don't have the recipe either). It's done when you can bump the edge of the dish and the custard "jiggles like jello, but doesn't wiggle like a wave."

I don't have that recipe but should work fine, and should take just 5 to 10 min longer (as long as the custard isn't too deep -- depends on size of dish).