Cooking Time - Crème brûlée

Today I tried out my hand at making a Crème brûlée. It didn't require a sophisticated amount of ingredients so yeah this is what happened.

Ingredients

Everything was easy to obtain, except the vanilla beans. Sure I could have gotten the essence but that sounded so artificial and I managed to find some at World Square albeit a hefty price of $8 per 4 pods.

Process

Scolding the cream and added the vanilla

Whisking eggs and sugar. My arm got really sore from whisking

Once the cream was ready I mixed it with the eggs

Placed the mix into the ramekins. Hmm they were right, it does serve four

Into the oven for 40 minutes. Realised I didn't preheat the oven. Also this oven confuses me. So many modes.

Out of the oven, looking good so far. Waited for it to cool before fridging them.

Finished product

After taking them out of the fridge I decided to experiment with different sugars for the caramel. I thought brown sugar would be good but my brown sugar was way too clumpy and didn't distribute well. My parents wanted to try their sugar and it turned out okay (left) but the sugar granules were a bit too big to make a good layer. Lastly I tried the caster sugar that I cooked with. The powder texture of the sugar made caramelising much easier. Next time I'll try brown caster sugar or something.

Verdict

They tasted okay, however they didn't set! Unsure where I went wrong but it was like eating custard. It might have been the oven so next time I'll take proper care of that part. I took some notes so I'll try again next time. Also I need better utensils such as measuring cups and etc, to make it more efficient. I also didn't preheat the oven, so I wasted precious time waiting for the oven to get ready. So I'll definitely make starting the oven the first thing I do.