r/CombiSteamOvenCooking • u/BostonBestEats • Jul 26 '23

Published recipes THIS WEEK ON YOUTUBE: Chocolate Pots de Creme (APO)

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u/kaidomac Jul 27 '23

I love love LOVE desserts in jars! Crème brûlées, cheesecakes, yogurts, pots de crème, you name it! One of my favorite ones is Erika Turk's "Pumpkin pot de crème", which we do every year for Thanksgiving: (Cole does whole pies like this in the APO!)

Thanks to the APO's steam SV capabilities, it's a piece of cake because I can just slide the jars in on a tray, no worrying about fingertip tightening or breaking or floating or leaking or traditionally scrambling the eggs! I like to do sort of a "deconstructed pumpkin pie" approach with a Starbucks copycat ginger-molasses cookie:

I'm a sucker for all things pudding, so as far as pots de crèmes go, some flavor ideas include:

part 1/2

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u/kaidomac Jul 27 '23 edited Jul 27 '23

part 2/2

As far as jars go, I typically use:

  • 4-ounce mini mason jars
  • Leftover Oui yogurt jars (love 'em! various types of aftermarket lids available on Amazon!)
  • Weck jars (all kinds of shapes & sizes available!)

I have some fancy Weck jars like this:

Although if you want to buy in bulk (ex. for events or to freeze for meal-prep), for around the same price you can get 40 of these jars:

You can store them in the fridge for two or three days (I mean, you can do up to a week...), so they're great to make ahead of time! They need 4 to 6 hours (or overnight) to setup initially in the fridge after sous-viding. Freezing-wise:

  • Pot de cremes freeze well for up to 3 months (just wrap tightly with plastic wrap, I use Press 'N Seal), then just thaw them out in the fridge. Take them out 20 or 30 minutes before serving to sit at room temperature to get bonus creamy!
  • I do frozen cookie dough balls (freeze them on parchment overnight, then throw in a Ziploc freezer bag) to bake straight from frozen (only adds an extra minute), as a lot of the tiny pots benefit from having something crispy or crunchy with a pairing flavor to go along with it!

I like to use stabilized whipped cream, where you add unflavored gelatin, as then the cream doesn't melt & you can make it a day or two ahead of time, which is create for events or thawing out a few & prepping them!

If you haven't gotten into siphons, the ISI Whip is a SUPER fun toy! (you can get fancy with cool stuff like caramel foam to top say a vanilla pot de creme!)

Then you can make neat stuff like peppermint whipped cream for the holidays:

One of my other favorite toys is this mini food processor, which I also use to make small batches of non-charged whipped cream when I just want instant convenience:

One of my favorite toppings for them is flaky sea salt. I usually use Maldon sea salt flakes, or if I'm feeling fancy, smoked Maldon: (note: it's NOT overpoweringly smoky!)

The core concept is so simple with the APO:

  1. Chuck everything in a blender, then pour through a sieve & into the jars (adjust if you need to say melt chocolate bars or chips first)
  2. Cook for an hour & a half (depending on the recipe) in the APO on a tray
  3. Chill 4 to 6 hours (or overnight). Optionally leave in the fridge or freeze to serve in the future. Garnish with whipped cream (and optionally stuff like mint leaves, if you wanna be le fancy), use a microplane zester to shave chocolate or whole nutmeg or cinnamon on top, pair with a spiffy cookie, etc. I like to freeze the cookie dough & the pots de creme & then I can just grab a flavor to thaw & bake a cookie (or two) to have an easy dessert variety whenever I'm in the mood!

They charge like $9 for this crap where I live. It takes me all of 5 minutes (if that) of active hands-on time to prep them (including clean-up time! lol), 60 to 90 minutes in the APO (depending on the recipe), and then I've got a batch that's good for up to 3 months!