Creme brulee with Fennel and Lavender

This is a recipe from Alfons Schuhbeck, a Michelin Star Chef from Munich. It takes a while to prepare, but it is a something special that tickles your tastebuds. You have to prepare it the day before, it has to rest in the fridge to set for a couple of hours.

Lavender or fennel might not be for everybody, but people who love different aromas will like this dessert a lot.

recipe for 4:

1 tsp icing sugar

15 g fennel seeds

270  g double cream

270 g whole milk

1 vanilla pod

2 tsp dried lavender blossoms

2 g orange peel

60 g sugar

120 g egg yolk

2 tbsp brown sugar

In a pan let the icing sugar caramelize and stir in the fennel seeds. Pour the caramell on a silpat and use a Silicon spatula to get it out of the pan completely. Let it cool down. Break the fennel caramell into pieces and put the into a mortar and pestle and make a fine crumb.Set aside.

Heat the double cream and the milk in a pot. Scrape the seeds out of the vanilla pod. add them, the fennelcaramell and the lavender and the pod to the pot. Add orange zest and half of the sugar. Bring it up to boil and then take it off the heat and let it sit 10 min.

Preheat the oven to 150 C.

In a bowl mix the egg yolks with the rest of the sugar. But do not beat it to be foamy!

Slowly pout the still hot milk into the egg mixture. Then pour everything through a fine sieve into a jug. Use ceramic moulds the size about 150 ml.

Divide the mix into the moulds and set them into a deep dish. Pour hot water into the deep dish, so that the moulds are 1/3 covered around.

Let it cook in the oven about 40 min, after 30 check the consistency. Maybe shorter or longer. Do not overcook. Take them out. Cool down completely.

Before serving, sprinkle the brown sugar over and either use a blow torch or the grill of your oven.

The dessert goes great with Espresso and a lavender cookie.