by mk

It would be wonderful if one could eat crème brûlée for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Unfortunately, your standard crème brûlée does not contain all the essential nutrients for healthy living.

Yesterday, I was struck with a simple solution to this longstanding problem: one could simply mix Soylent into a crème brûlée!

Actually, no.

Three weeks ago, in a post wherein I shared my experience with replacing lunch with Soylent, humanodon joked that if I set it aflame, I might have a shot to win the 6th #grubski challenge. Offhandedly, I suggested a Soylent brûlée, and he dared me to do it. This is the post that I promised.

Coincidentally, my Soylent brûlée qualifies for the 7th #grubski challenge, which requires dairy as an ingredient. Thus, it is my entry.

I had never made crème brûlée before, but the recipe seemed simple enough. The ingredients required are:

  cream
  sugar
  egg yolk
  vanilla extract
  blow torch

Of course, the real decision to be made was how I might modify the recipe. Knowing that the crème brûlée gets cohesion from the egg yolk and the immense amount of fat in the cream, I decided that replacing either of those would be disasterous. I was thus left with the simpler decision of whether or not to replace the sugar and the vanilla extract with Soylent. I think the correct decision here is a fine matter for debate.

For my part, I concluded that this was either going to be an attempt to make a chimera brûlée, substituting Soylent for a characteristic ingredient, or to make this wonderous high-faluting French dessert nutritionally complete.

Inspired by the DIY spirit of the Soylent community, I settled for the latter approach. These are the ingredients of the Soylent brûlée:

  1 pint cream
  1/2 cup sugar
  1 1/2 egg yolks
  1 tsp vanilla extract
  1/4 cup Soylent (+ 1 tbsp Oil Blend)
  blow torch

I think it worked out well.

As a scientist, I couldn't perform the experiment without a control. Therefore, I made a classic crème brûlée in parallel with the Soylent brûlée.

The ingredients. That's evaporated cane sugar. The Oil Blend isn't pictured, as I hadn't committed to using it at that point.

Bringing the cream to a boil. Swirls of vanilla extract.

Egg yolks whipped with 1/4 cup of sugar. Mix in the warmed cream (and Soylent). Here's where the brûlées parted.

Omega-3 fatty acids are important.

I was pleasantly pleased with how easily Soylent dissolves in warm cream. Much easier than room temperature water.

Going in. The Soylent brûlée is in the blue bowl. You place the bowls in a cooking tray with hot water coming half way up the sides. The oven temp was 325F. The original recipe calls for 40-45 min. You wait until the brûlée is firm, but still tremors in the middle when you bump the tray. At 35 min, the Soylent brûlée stopped tremoring. Therefore, I pulled them out at 40 min, just when the crème brûlée seemed properly cooked.

Coming out. All looked well. After a few minutes, I placed them in the refrigerator to remain overnight.

Torching the crème brûlée. I spread the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar evenly over the top. This part was easier than it looks.

Torching the Soylent brûlée. An unfamiliar smell made me consider that future versions of Soylent might carry the warning: NEVER MIX SOYLENT WITH SUGAR AND BLOW TORCH!

The obligatory garnish and voilà!

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Soylent brûlée was less creamy in texture. However, it was in the same neighborhood. We (myself, my wife, and my two-year-old daughter) tasted each...

It was delicious! My wife and I agreed that we preferred the crème brûlée to the Soylent brûlée, but it was a close race. The maltiness of the Soylent combined with the sweet creaminess of the brûlée made for a subtle chocolate flavor. My daughter decidedly preferred the Soylent brûlée, and focused upon the healthier of the desserts.

If the Soylent brûlée fell short, it was due to a complexity of flavor, and the slightly chalky mouthfeel of Soylent which survived even this process. One of the wonderful things about crème brûlée is the simplicity of its taste profile, and the Soylent brûlée came off as a bit too loud. However, as it carries with it all your essential vitamins and nutrients, it can easily be forgiven.

Were I to be served this concoction under different circumstances, I might consider the Soylent brûlée to be a stand alone success.