My newest toy

If you've been reading my posts lately, you'll already know that I'm making creme brulee for dessert tomorrow. I finally decided on regular and chocolate. The only remaining concern (i.e. fear) was how well I would be able to brown the sugar without burning it or setting it on fire.

My fear is well founded you see, as I have already set food on fire in our gas oven while using the broiler. It happened in 2000 on the first Thanksgiving in our new home. I had never worked with a gas stove and oven. Imagine my surprise when I turned on the broiler and discovered that there were open flames coming out of the top of the oven! Biscuit Boy's reply to my surprise was "Well, duh.....how else would you broil in a gas oven?" And to add to my trepidation, the item I was going to broil was my mother-in-law's sweet potato casserole. She carried this casserole all the way from Chattanooga, TN. A 10 hour drive. All I had to do was sprinkle the brown sugar, pecan and butter topping on it and broil it until it was nice and bubbly.

So I turned on the broiler, slid the casserole in the oven and af ew minutes later I, um, sorta forgot about the open flame and uh, sorta smelled something burning. I peeked in the oven and saw it....a small bit of flame on top of the casserole! Eek! I pulled the casserole out of the oven, blowing out the parts of the top that were still smoldering and tried to figure out what to do. But not to fear, my mother-in-law very calmly said "Aw, we can just scrape off the burnt part and put some more on. It'll be fine." Phew! I was saved. And this time I kept an eye on the casserole which came out just right.

So you can imagine that I didn't want to repeat history with the creme brulee, especially since my in-laws were here. And today while I was out shopping at World Market with my mother-in-law I spied something that may just save me, a creme brulee iron. The instructions are simple, just heat up the iron over the stove top for about 5 minutes then gently press it onto the sugar in the creme brulee dish until it's lightly browned. Then repeat until they are all done. Hey, I can do that! (I hope). But to be on the safe side, keep your fingers crossed for me......just in case......

Merry Christmas!