Cafe au Lait Pots de Creme

Ingredients

3/4 cups milk
1/2 cup cream
2 Tbls. sugar
2 Tbls sucanat

1 Tbls. espresso powder

1/2 vanilla bean

( beans scraped from the pod)
pinch of salt
1 egg plus 2 egg yolks

Instructions

• preheat oven to 325*
• warm some water in a tea kettle
• in a small saucepan, combine the milk, cream, sugars, espresso, vanilla bean ( scrape the beans from the pod and put both the pod and the beans into the saucepan ), and salt.  Heat over low heat just until starting to boil.
• in a measuring cup whisk the egg yolks and the one egg.
• once milk mixture reaches the almost boiling point, pour about a 1/4 cup of the mixture into the egg mixture.  do this slowly, you don’t want to “cook” the eggs.  keep adding the milk mixture a little at a time until all is incorporated. 
• pour the custard into 8-2 oz. ramekins or 4-4oz ramekins and place in a baking dish. 
• fill the baking dish to the halfway point of the ramekins with the heated water ( I like to put my ramekins into the baking dish and put it in the oven.  once steady, i pour the hot water into the pan.  push the oven tray back, gently and close the oven door).
• bake until the edges are set, but still a little wobbly, about 20-25 minutes.
• remove ramekins from the water and place on a small sheet pan filled with ice water.  let cool.
• refrigerate until serving