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Delicate, yielding custard beneath a thin sheet of shatteringly crisp torched sugar topping… add to that the sweet scent of vanilla beans and toasty notes of burnt sugar crystals, and that just about sums up the definition of a sublime crème brûlée in our books. The origins of crème brûlée aren’t clear. Some reports point to Trinity College in Cambridge, England, as the birthplace of the dessert (known as burnt cream) and claims that it first came about after the college crest was burnt into sugar on top of a custard with a hot iron. Over in France, the first recorded recipes for the French version were discovered during the 17th century, while crema catalana, the Spanish variation, was found a century later. History aside, what’s important for the enjoyment of a classic crème brulée is that the texture of the custard must not bring to mind curdled eggs, the torched sugar topping not too thick that it takes effort to crack with the back of a spoon, and the ramekin should be wide and shallow (not narrow and deep) as a bigger surface area means more of that delicious caramelised topping to break into.