How to Make Pumpkin Crème Caramel
Serves: 6
Preparation time: 15 mins
Cooking time: 1 ½ hrs
Ingredients needed to make Pumpkin Crème Caramel:
- 1 cup pumpkin puree (recipe below)
- 7 whole cloves
- Three 1’ cinnamon sticks
- 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
- 5 allspice berries
- ½ cup milk
- 2 large eggs
- 3 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 cup thickened cream
- 1/3 cup sugar
Cooking instructions for Pumpkin Crème Caramel:
- To make the pumpkin puree, warm up your oven to 200 degrees C and grease a baking tray with a small lashing of oil.
- Slice a butternut pumpkin into two equal halves and scrap out the seeds.
- Arrange them onto the greased baking tray, with their cut side facing down and roast in the oven for 45 minutes or until they soften.
- Scoop out the cooked pumpkin flesh using a spoon and transfer it into a blender.
- Blitz into a smooth puree and set aside to cool completely.
- Lower the oven temperature to 160 degrees and position at rack midway within it.
- Pour in a tbsp water in a saucepan and stir in sugar until it dissolves slightly.
- Heat the mixture over slow flame, and continue to cook while stirring constantly, until the sugar dissolves completely to form a syrup.
- Increase the heat slightly and bring it up to a simmer over medium heat.
- Cook the syrup, undisturbed, for the next 5 minutes or until it turns light caramel in colour and turn off the heat.
- Whisk in a splash of water and maple syrup until well combined and brush it within six 180 gm ramekins.
- Toss the whole spices into a baking dish and toast for 10 minutes or until they give out a zesty fragrance.
- Tip them into a medium saucepan along with ground nutmeg and whisk in the cream as well as milk.
- Pour in the pumpkin puree and fold it into the mixture until mixed properly.
- Bring the mixture to a boil and turn off the heat; let it rest for an hour to steep; get rid of the spices.
- Crack the eggs in a medium bowl and pour in the cooked pumpkin blend until they are mixed thoroughly into a uniform mixture.
- Divide it among the prepared ramekins and arrange them in a deep-bottomed baking tray.
- Pour boiling water into the tray so that they rise up halfway up the ramekins and wrap the surface with a sheet of foil.
- Bake for 18 minutes or until it sets and remove from oven.
- Lift the ramekins up from the tray and set aside to cool completely.
- Leave in the fridge to chill and until it’s time to serve them.
- Flip each ramekin onto a serving plate and serve chilled.
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
