Author Notes
I have a soft spot for Pakistani desserts, their combination of sweet spice and floral essences captivates me, but I am always drawn by the simplicity of crème brûlée in my western repertoire. In this recipe, I have combined a basic crème brûlée with Pakistani dessert flavour. A creation from a sensory memory of my grandmotheri’s garden, her warm kitchen and her comforting kheer (rice pudding) that would entice me away from homework and chores and find me being pampered with her love, flavour and her wonderful cooking. —Sumayya Usmani
Ingredients
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1 pint
whole milk
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3
green cardamoms, seeds removed and crushed
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4
large egg yolks
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130 grams
caster sugar
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2 tablespoons
pink edible rose petals
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A few pink rose buds to garnish
Directions
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To make the rose sugar, add all the rose petals with sugar and keep in an air tight jar for about 3-6 days, allowing the fragrance of roses to infuse with the sugar.
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Set 6 ramekins in a roasting tin, add water to the baking tin so that it reaches halfway of the ramekin.
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Beat the egg yolks in a bowl with about 1-2 tbsp of the rose sugar and slowly add the infused cream in a thin stream into the beaten egg yolks until all combined. Add the rose water and stir slowly. Pour through a strainer into a jug. Pour the mixture into the ramekins equally.
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Bake in an oven at 150 degrees C for about 30-40 minutes.
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Once cooked, remove from oven and cool and then chill for 3-4 hours or overnight.
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Sprinkle remaining rose sugar over each crème brûlée t form a thin layer of sugar. Either place under hot girl for 2-3 minutes until sugar is caramelised or using a blow torch caramelise the sugar until brown and hard.
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Cool for another hour in the fridge until the top is hard. Decorate with rose buds and serve cool.
Sumayya is a food writer and cookery teacher who grew up in Pakistan, but has now found home in Glasgow. Sumayya is passionate about sharing the flavours of her homeland with a view to highlight Pakistani cuisine as a distinct one. The author or two cookbooks: Summers Under The Tamarind Tree (Frances Lincoln) and Mountain Berries and Desert Spice (Frances Lincoln, out April 2017), her writing reminisces about food and memories growing up in Pakistan. She writes for many publications, appears on television, and co-presents BBC Kitchen Cafe weekly, on BBC Radio Scotland.
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