Creme Brulee Cookies

Ever since a friend of mine introduced me to crème brulee I have been a little crème brulee crazy. I tried Vanilla Bean Crème Brulee and Crème Brulee Cheesecake Bars. Then I came across a recipe, whilst Googling, for crème brulee cookies. Well, several different recipes to be exact. The idea intrigued me. None of them seemed to be exactly what I was looking for though. The one on this blog (itsabcd.blogspot.com) was the closest to what I imagined crème brulee in a cookie to be. I only made a few small changes to come up with this version.

I don’t know if it is the flavour of the crème brulee or the fact that I get to use the kitchen torch that keeps me trying different versions of crème brulee recipes.

.

 Crème Brulee Cookies

Ingredients

1 cup butter, room temp

¾ cup brown sugar

¼ cup white sugar

1 pkg (3.4 oz) Jello vanilla pudding mix (not prepared)

2 eggs

Vanilla bean, halved lengthwise, seeds scraped

2 ½ cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

Pinch salt

½ tsp cinnamon

½ tsp nutmeg

1 pkg (I believe 3.7 oz) Dr.Oetker Crème Brulee Mix, prepared as per package

instructions

¼ cup white sugar, for sprinkling on top

Directions

Preheat oven to 350. Prepare Dr. Oetker (that is the brand I had available here – I’m sure whichever brand would work) Crème Brulee Mix as per package directions and set aside.

In large bowl, cream together butter and sugars until fluffy. Add in Jello vanilla pudding mix and blend until combined. Add in eggs and vanilla bean seeds. (Save pod for another use)

In medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and beat until combined.

Using small cookie scoop – or just pinching off a golf ball sized amount with your fingers and rolling into balls, scoop dough onto cookie sheet lined with parchment paper a couple of inches apart. Using your thumb or back of measuring Tbsp, press indent into cookies.

Chill in fridge for about 15 minutes.

Carefully fill indents with prepared crème brulee filling. You can fill them fairly full as it does not bubble up or anything.

Bake in 350 oven for 10 – 15 minutes. Edges should be golden brown.

Remove from oven and let cool for about 10 minutes before removing to wire rack to cool completely.

Sprinkle approximately 1/8 of a tsp of sugar on top of pudding in each cookie.

Caramelize sugar using kitchen torch, being careful not to hit the cookie itself as it will burn. (Unfortunately, using the broiler to try and caramelize the sugar will not work. It ends up with burned or very crunchy cookies.)

.

From bottom to top - plain, with sugar, and completed caramelized sugar

 These were very tasty. This is a fancy, lightly spiced cookie that you would never guess started out as a plain sugar cookie. The fun part is that you still get to hear a little bit of that trademark cracking as you break the sugar like you get with actual crème brulee. Only if you eat it the first day though. I found the sugar got a teeny tiny bit liquid-y after sitting in the fridge overnight and the cookie got a teeny tiny bit soggy. Not enough to ruin the cookie per se but enough that if you were serving them to a group of people trying to impress them with how cool you are in the kitchen then you would definitely want to serve them right away.

You could probably even wait until just before serving them to caramelize the sugar. Impress everyone with your amazing kitchen torch skills.

I think next on my “To Try” list will be Crème Brulee Cupcakes or perhaps a Crème Brulee Pie. I have seen video how-to’s for both ideas and they look pretty interesting.