---
title: 'Giga-Brûlée'
slug: 'giga-brulee'
kind: 'recipe'
revision: 1
source: 'mcp'
created: '2026-09-11T17:49:16.108Z'
url: 'https://noble-notations.ryanjnoble.dev/recipes/giga-brulee'
---

# Giga-Brûlée

_Crème brûlée made in one large tray, not in ramekins_

A vanilla custard baked as one thin sheet in a tray. This version uses 2000 ml of cream at 34 percent fat and 355 g of egg yolk. The custard is 1 cm deep. It cooks in a steam oven at 85 degrees C to a core of 82 degrees C.

Two methods in this version are not standard. First, the vanilla seeds are rubbed into the sugar and go in with the yolks. The empty pods go into the cream on their own. This stops the seeds from sinking to the bottom of the tray. Second, the custard is warmed to 55 degrees C before it goes into the oven. This shortens the cook and makes the set even.

The yolk ratio here is 177 g per litre of cream. That is lower than the 230 g per litre of the earlier version. The set is softer. The core temperature goes to 82 degrees C to compensate.

## Why this revision

First version recorded in this store. Built at the Roztoc festival on 11 September 2026 with 2000 ml of cream and 355 g of yolk that were already bought.

## Categories

- **Equipment**: Combi oven, Blowtorch, Fine-mesh sieve, Probe thermometer
- **Course**: Dessert
- **Cuisine**: French
- **Occasion**: Party
- **Texture**: Silky, Crisp
- **Technique**: Steaming, Caramelisation, Tempering

## Ingredients


### Custard

- 2000 ml Heavy cream, 34% fat
- 4 Vanilla pods, split, seeds and pods used separately
- 355 g Egg yolks
- 200 g Sugar
- 3 g Fine sea salt

### Brûlée top

- 170 g Sugar

## Method


### Prepare

1. Put the empty tray on the oven rack. Check the rack is level in both directions.
   > At 1 cm depth, a tilt of 2 mm across 400 mm gives a depth difference of 40 percent. The shallow end sets before the deep end.
2. Take the tray back out. Keep it cold and dry until you pour.
   > A hot tray in a steam chamber sets the bottom layer of custard on contact.
3. Split the vanilla pods. Scrape the seeds onto the custard sugar.
4. Rub the seeds into the sugar with your fingers for 3 minutes. No clumps must remain. _(3 min · Grinding)_
   > The sugar crystals cut the seed clumps apart. This is the step that stops the seeds sinking. Granulated sugar works better than caster sugar here, because the crystals are larger and harder.
5. Grind the vanilla sugar to a fine powder if you have a grinder.
   > Coarse sugar is better for the rub but slower to dissolve. Grinding after the rub gives both.
6. Cut the empty pods into pieces of 5 mm.
   > Cut pod gives more exposed surface than a split whole pod. Most of the aroma that is not vanillin sits in the tissue inside the pod.
7. Grind the top sugar to a fine powder. Put it in a sealed jar until service.
   > Coarse crystals melt from the outside in. The surface burns before the centre melts.

### Custard

8. Put the cream in a large pan with the cut pods. Add no seeds.
9. Heat the cream to 80 degrees C. Do not let it boil. _(80 °C)_
10. Take the pan off the heat. Put the lid on. Wait 45 minutes. _(45 min)_
   > Do not hold the cream at 80 degrees C. Holding drives off the aroma compounds and reduces the cream.
11. Set the oven to 100 percent steam at 85 degrees C. Set the fan to minimum. _(85 °C)_
   > Set the core probe to 82 degrees C. Use no foil and no water tray. Foil blocks the steam from reaching the surface.
12. Whisk the egg yolks. Pass them through a medium sieve.
   > This removes the chalazae. It is the only sieving of the yolks. After the seeds go in, nothing is sieved again.
13. Whisk the vanilla sugar and the salt into the yolks.
   > The mixture is a stiff paste at this ratio. This is correct. It becomes pourable in a later step.
14. Pass the cream through a fine sieve. Press the pods to release the cream they hold.
15. Heat the strained cream back to 58 degrees C. _(58 °C)_
   > The cream falls to about 45 degrees C during the 45 minute wait. 58 degrees C is the number that gives 55 degrees C after mixing.
16. Whisk 300 ml of the cream into the yolk paste. Whisk until the paste pours.
   > 355 g of yolk holds about 178 g of water. That is not enough to dissolve 200 g of sugar on its own.
17. Heat the loosened base over a bain-marie to 48 degrees C. Stir with a spatula all the time. _(15 min · 48 °C · Tempering)_
   > Stop only when no grain remains under the spatula. Undissolved sugar leaves pockets of unprotected water that set before the rest of the custard. The stirring is also a second pass at breaking up the seeds.
18. Pour the remaining 1700 ml of cream into the base. Whisk as you pour.
   > There is no risk of scrambling at this temperature difference. The risk is whisking air in. Use slow, deliberate strokes.
19. Check the mixture is at 55 degrees C. Stir 2 minutes to make the temperature even. _(2 min · 55 °C)_
   > The ceiling is 58 degrees C. Yolk proteins start to unfold at about 62 degrees C.

### Bake

20. Put the cold tray on the rack. Pour the custard across the whole tray in one movement.
   > Do not pour into one spot. At 1 cm depth the custard does not level itself. If you use two trays, divide the custard by weight on a scale.
21. Move a blowtorch fast across the surface to break the bubbles.
   > At 1 cm depth, one bubble is a hole through a third of the custard.
22. Close the oven door. Cook until the centre reaches 82 degrees C. _(12 min · 82 °C · Steaming)_
   > Nothing in the chamber can go above 85 degrees C, so the custard cannot overshoot. Open the door as little as possible. Each opening breaks the steam saturation and stops the cooking.

### Chill

23. Take the tray out. Dry the surface with kitchen paper at once.
   > Steam leaves water on the surface. That water stays on the custard as it cools and wets the skin you need dry.
24. Cool the tray on a rack for 25 minutes. Do not cover it. _(25 min)_
25. Put the tray in the coldest part of the fridge at 2 degrees C. Leave it uncovered for 2 hours. _(120 min · 2 °C)_
   > The uncovered time dries the surface. Sugar on a wet surface makes syrup, not glass.
26. Cover the tray loosely. Chill for 12 hours. _(720 min)_
   > Do not judge the set while it is warm. At this yolk ratio, the fat crystals that form in the cold carry a large part of the firmness.

### Finish

27. Put the tray in the freezer for 15 minutes. Do not leave it longer. _(15 min)_
   > The custard must be cold but not frozen. At 1 cm in a metal tray, 25 minutes starts to form ice crystals at the edges. Ice crystals break the gel and the custard weeps.
28. Dry the surface with kitchen paper until it is matt.
29. Sieve one third of the top sugar over the tray in a thin layer.
   > The layer must be thin enough to still see the custard through it.
30. Hold the blowtorch 15 to 20 cm away. Move it in strips until the sugar is mid-amber. _(Caramelisation)_
   > A butane-propane torch at 30 percent propane burns hotter than butane alone and does not weaken as the cylinder cools. Move faster than with a butane torch. A strong flame can blow a thin layer of sugar off the tray, so dust a little heavier and come across the surface at a low angle.
31. Wait 2 minutes. Repeat the sugar and the torch two more times. _(2 min)_
   > Three thin layers give one even sheet. One thick layer gives burnt spots over unmelted sugar.
32. Wait 3 minutes for the caramel to harden. Serve within 30 minutes. _(3 min)_
   > Caramel takes up water from the custard below it. The crust goes soft within the hour.

## Notes

### Why vanilla seeds sink, and what stops it _(science)_

Settling in a still liquid follows Stokes law. The speed is proportional to the difference in density, proportional to the square of the particle radius, and inversely proportional to the viscosity of the liquid.

You cannot change the density of a vanilla seed. You cannot make warm custard thick enough to stop settling without cooking it into an anglaise first. The radius is the term you can control, and it is squared.

Scraped seeds come out of the pod held together in the oily tissue of the pod. A clump of ten seeds has about twice the radius of one seed, so it falls about four times as fast. Rubbing the seeds into sugar breaks the clumps apart. The sugar crystals work as a grinding medium.

The second control is time. Gel fronts start at every heated face and move inwards. At 1 cm depth each front travels only 5 mm. Putting the custard in at 55 degrees C rather than cold shortens the liquid window, so less falls before the gel sets.

Conditions: seed diameter about 0.3 mm · custard at 55 degrees C · gel forms at 72 to 80 degrees C

### Egg yolk per litre sets the firmness _(science)_

Egg yolk carries about 16 percent protein. It is the only structural element in the custard. Cream gives fat and water, and the fat interrupts the protein network rather than building it. So firmness tracks the ratio of yolk to cream almost in a straight line.

The useful range is about 200 to 250 g of yolk per litre of cream. Below about 200 the gel is loose and silken. Above about 250 it holds a cut edge, which is the texture of crème caramel and not of crème brûlée. The floor where a baked yolk custard stops setting at all is about 140 g per litre.

This version runs 177 g per litre because that is the cream and yolk that were available. It sets, and it sets softer than the 230 g per litre version. The core goes to 82 degrees C rather than 79 to 80 degrees C. A sparser network needs a larger share of its protein unfolded before the structure spans the whole volume.

You cannot bake a lean mix firm. More heat does not add junctions that are not there. It only makes the existing junctions contract, and above 85 degrees C they push out the water they hold.

Conditions: 177 g yolk per litre · 230 g yolk per litre · core 79 to 82 degrees C

### Steam holds the surface at the chamber temperature _(science)_

Dry air is a poor carrier of heat. To push energy into a custard through air, the oven must run far above the target, and that gap is what makes the edges of a tray cook before the centre.

Steam moves heat by condensing. Vapour condenses on any surface below the dew point and releases its latent heat, about 2260 kJ per kg of water. The transfer is much faster than dry air, and it happens at a fixed temperature.

The fixed temperature is the useful part. Once the surface reaches the dew point, condensation stops. The surface cannot go above the chamber temperature. A water bath works the same way, held at 100 degrees C by boiling. A steam oven lets you choose the number instead.

85 degrees C is chosen because the custard is finished at 79 to 82 degrees C and weeping needs the middle eighties. At 85 degrees C the failure is not available. Running 100 degrees C steam throws that away and puts the surface back above the weeping threshold.

One correction to a common claim. A combi oven at 85 degrees C is not pure saturated steam. It is humid air with a dew point of 85 degrees C. Air that does not condense blankets the surface and cuts the transfer coefficient. The advantage over dry air is real but it is several times, not a hundred times.

Conditions: 100 percent steam · 85 degrees C · latent heat about 2260 kJ per kg

### Do not let the custard pass 58 degrees C before the oven _(warning)_

Both halves of this custard are warm when they meet. That is unusual, and it makes the arithmetic matter.

The yolk base is at 48 degrees C. The cream must be at 58 degrees C. Those two give 55 degrees C when mixed.

If you use the standard method and bring the cream to 70 degrees C, the mixture lands near 65 degrees C. Yolk proteins start to unfold at about 62 degrees C. At 65 degrees C you form small aggregates in the pot. Those aggregates survive. You cannot sieve them out, because the seeds are already in the mix and a sieve would take them too.

The result is not a smooth gel. It is a fine suspension of set particles inside a gel, and it reads as chalk on the tongue.

### Match the volume of the batch to the area of the tray _(warning)_

This batch finishes at about 2470 ml. Cream is 2000 ml, the yolk adds about 345 ml, and the dissolved sugar adds about 125 ml.

The rule: every 100 square cm of flat base holds 100 ml at a depth of 1 cm.

So this batch needs about 2470 square cm of flat base for a depth of 1 cm. Two gastronorm 1/1 pans give about 2950 square cm, which is a depth of 0.84 cm. One gastronorm 1/1 pan alone gives a depth of about 1.67 cm.

Measure the flat bottom of the tray, not the rim. The sides of a roasting tray slope. Depth drives the bake time, the amount of top sugar and how hard the tray must be chilled before torching. Get the area first and everything else follows from it.

### Cast caramel shards when no torch is available _(substitution)_

Use this when the blowtorch fails and no grill or salamander is available.

Put 500 g of granulated sugar, 150 ml of water and 5 ml of lemon juice in a heavy pan. Stir only until the sugar is wet, then stop. Brush the sides of the pan down with water to stop crystals seeding the batch.

Boil hard. The water goes off first and takes several minutes. Colour then moves fast, in about 90 seconds. Take the pan off at amber, one shade lighter than you want. A batch of 500 g carries 10 to 15 degrees C of residual heat and keeps darkening off the heat.

Sit the pan base in cold water for 3 seconds. Stir in 4 g of fine salt. Pour onto silicone mats or oiled parchment and tilt to about 1 mm. Scatter flaky salt while the surface is tacky. Cool at room temperature until it snaps.

Break into pieces and store airtight at room temperature. Do not refrigerate the caramel. Condensation turns it to syrup. Lay the shards on the custard at the moment of service. Caramel starts to dissolve from below as soon as it meets cold custard.

Coverage: 2470 square cm at 1.2 mm needs about 445 g of sugar on the tray. 500 g allows for trim.

If parchment is all you have, test it first. Melt 30 g of sugar, drop a spoonful on the paper, let it set, and try to peel it. Silicone-coated baking paper releases. Plain greaseproof paper does not. Wipe the paper with a little neutral oil and tape the corners down before you pour.

### Mature the custard base cold overnight before baking _(idea)_

Not tried yet.

The idea is to build the base one day, chill it to 4 degrees C overnight with the pods still in it, then warm it and bake the next day.

Two things should improve. The yolk lipoproteins and the cream proteins hydrate fully in the cold, which thickens the base and should slow the seeds further. And the vanilla keeps extracting into the fat during the cold hours, with no loss to evaporation.

The cost is scheduling. The custard still needs 6 hours of chilling after the bake, so service has to be late in the day.

Nothing about this has been measured.

### The dish was first printed in 1691 _(research)_

Crème brûlée first appears in print in François Massialot's cookbook of 1691. The top was browned with a hot iron, not a torch.

Massialot's version was made in a dish and served from it. Individual ramekins are a later restaurant convention for portioning. A large tray is therefore closer to the original format than a ramekin is.

Two related dishes share the method. Crema catalana is set on the stove with starch and flavoured with citrus and cinnamon. Cambridge burnt cream is recorded in England in the nineteenth century.

- Source: Le Cuisinier Roïal et Bourgeois