Meaning & use
crème brûlée
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Meaning
nouncountable or uncountable
A cold dessert of rich egg custard topped with a thin layer of sugar that is heated until it forms a hard, golden crust.
Grammar: Uncountable for the dish in general, countable for servings: two crème brûlées.
Patterns
- crème brûlée with something
We shared a vanilla crème brûlée after dinner.
The best part of crème brûlée is cracking the sugar crust with a spoon.
She ordered a lavender crème brûlée for dessert.
Word forms
| plural | crème brûlées |
|---|
Common combinations
- vanilla crème brûlée
- The vanilla crème brûlée was silky and sweet.
- crack the crust of a crème brûlée
- He cracked the crust of his crème brûlée with a spoon.
- torch a crème brûlée
- The chef torched the crème brûlée just before serving.
- order the crème brûlée
- I always order the crème brûlée.
Synonyms and how they differ
- custard
- Broader term for a cooked egg-and-milk mixture; crème brûlée has the hard sugar topping.
Word family
- crème caramel noun
- a related custard dessert with soft caramel sauce on top
Commonly confused: crème brûlée or crème caramel?
crème brûlée vs crème caramel
Crème caramel is turned out of its dish with liquid caramel, while crème brûlée has a hard burnt-sugar crust.
Practice
What makes crème brûlée different from plain custard?
Choose one answer.
Crème brûlée is topped with sugar that is heated until it forms a crisp crust. The other features are not part of the traditional dessert.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “crème brûlée”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.