Day 81: sweet memories
I know I’m not the only one to be sent soaring back to their childhood when it comes to thinking about desserts. Whether they be the homecooked-by-grandmother kind or the kind we eagerly anticipate at the end of our main course when dining out with family, desserts (and indeed food in general) have an almost unrivalled ability to evoke memories we thought long forgotten.
This is particularly common, I think, in foods or desserts that go “out of trend”: if they no longer appear on menus and in the supermarkets, we tend to forget about them and the wonderful memories we associate them with. And Nigella speaks of her experience of this in Cook Eat Repeat when she stumbled across her Grandmother’s recipe for crème caramel.
Crème caramel, for me, is my childhood abroad. Holidays, to be precise. I think, pre-teen, my desserts of choice were always the gimmicky half-coconut shells filled with coconut ice cream or the oranges that were hollowed out and replaced with orange-flavoured ice cream. You know, the kinds of desserts chosen from the sun-bleached laminated dessert menus that were mounted above the freezers. And whether or not the actual flesh of these fruits was used in the making of those pre-packed desserts I do not know, but I do recall them being as hard as ice and needing to wait in five-minute intervals to be able to take a spoon from each thawing layer. Nevertheless, I seemed to enjoy them and always re-ordered them. I even recall the creme caramel ones that came in the terracotta pots - they were always slightly more bitter than regular ice creams, but I taste I know find myself craving as I write this.
It was in my teens that my love turned toward the copper-topped baked custard. I recall holidays in Spain visiting my step-grandparents and ordering flan de la casa every night we ate out or got morning coffee in the nearby square. It was always served with a whisp of that sweetened, long-life, squirty cream (that I would gobble up in the first mouthful). I have George, my step-grandad, to thank for the introduction. I don’t recall if he had an enthusiastically sweet tooth himself, but they always remind me of him and the time we spent together. He even used to drive to numerous shops (some quite far away from where they lived) to buy these gorgeously sweet and sticky pastries made up of many thin layers of pastry, soaked in syrup and dusted with icing sugar, just because he knew how much I loved them. I don’t recall their name, I thought it was Estrellas, but the results returned on an internet search are not ringing any bells.
Nigella’s Crème Caramel For One (here for two)
I knew this was a challenge I had to face sooner or later. You know I’m not comfortable with my oven and I am genuinely convinced it has a vendetta against me. But on this occasion, it played ball and the custard baked nicely with no signs of splitting. My last attempt at baking a custard (for my Nan’s Crème Brûlée to be precise) didn’t end so well. However, I blame my Mum for that mishap as she was the one who turned the oven up because she thought it wasn’t setting. I am usually the one guilty of being impatient if nothing is happening, often cranking up the heat to speed the process. I refrained here though!
To be honest, the most dramatic part of this process for me was actually making the caramel. It took me three attempts to be precise. Each time it reached the right colour and I tried to pour it, it would pretty much solidify before even leaving the pan. I then realised that this was probably because I was using a larger pan to accommodate the caramel for two, which meant a larger surface area, which meant more area to lose water. That’s my theory anyway. So on my final attempt, each time it thickened before reaching the right colour, I (carefully and standing at arm’s length) added another teaspoon of water, swirling about in the pan and repeating until it reached the right colour. This seemed to work and it poured beautifully in all its chestnutty glory into my vessels of choice, before I then added the luxuriously yolky custard and put them in the oven to bake in their water bath.
Flavour musings
Needless to say, I found myself getting a bit flustered when unmoulding the crème caramel. And because I had broadcasted on social that I was making it, I felt extra pressure to get it right: I didn’t want to post a picture of syrupy scrambled eggs. The unveiling felt like an end-of-year practical science exam, with the teacher in their lab coat peering over my shoulder. When your an anxious person, anticipation can be exhausting, but hearing that squelch after I flipped the saucer and ramekin over was probably the most relieved I’ve felt all lockdown (that and hearing from each of my loved ones as they got news of their vaccination appointments.). I may well have had an emotional breakdown if it had failed! Obviously, to clarify, this over-dramatisation should not deter you from trying it yourself. I am an anxious person and blow even the smallest of things out of proportion unnecessarily!
The smell, the wobble, the taste, the texture - everything about this - sent me back to my childhood: to that first flan de la casa George ordered for me and to every joyous memory with him after. The making and eating, and writing about said making and eating, of Nigella’s Crème Caramel For One, was an unexpectedly evocative experience. But one for which I am very grateful. Relief, comfort and sweet memories were found in the unmoulding and eating of this jiggly little custard pud.
