Chef Taylor Erickson makes his famous Caramel Apple Pots de Crème with Maldon Salt Flakes

Ingredients

8 tbsp butter + 2 tbsp for apples
1 apple, in 1/2 inch slices
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1 vanilla bean
3 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 1/2 cups whole milk
12 egg yolks
8 8oz. Wide-mouth Mason jars, sterilized or oven-safe small pots

method

Preheat oven to 325 degrees

On the stove, in a small skillet, sauté the apple slices in 2 Tbsp butter until soft. Sprinkle with cinnamon and stir again until apples are coated. Using tongs, place a piece of apple in the bottom of every jar. Set aside.

In a saucepan, melt the remaining butter. Stir in the brown sugar, salt, and the seeds (removed) from the vanilla bean. Cook for a couple of minutes, stirring continuously. It will smell good.

Slowly add the heavy cream, stirring as you go. The sugar will dissolve. Turn off the heat, mix pure milk.

In a large bowl, with a pouring spout if available, add the egg yolks. Gradually poor in the butter-sugar mixture, barely softening the eggs as you do so, and whisking continuously.

Pour the custard into sterilized jars, on top of every apple slice, filling about one centimeter from the top. It’s okay if the apple slices float to the top.

Place jars in a large roasting pan with high sides. Carefully fill the roasting pan with hot water so that only the bottom half of the jar is submerged. Bake for one hour on the middle rack.

Remove the pan from the oven and punctiliously remove the custard from the hot water. I use tweezers with rubber grips. Let the custard cool on the counter for one hour.

After chilling for an hour, place the pudding jar in the fridge for at least 4 hours, or up to 2 days.

When ready to serve, sprinkle each custard with a pinch of Maldon Salt Flakes. I like to break up small flakes into finer pieces with my fingers as a sprinkle 🙂