When Creme Brulee goes wrong...

...you get vanilla flavoured scrambled eggs! I never knew that.

I'm a first time creme brulee maker. I thought it looked lovely and simple.

Cream, sugar, vanilla, and some orange zest and Cointreau as this was going to be an orangey flavoured one.

Some whisking, and some bringing up to simmer heat. A bit of combining of ingredients, and in to the pots. Don't they look perfect?

The recipe I was using was an American one, and I quickly googled the phrase "convert 325 degrees f to celcius". If you click on my link, you'll see the results I got. The 1st link returned contained the snippet of a phrase "325 F to Celsius 169 C."

Aha, 170 degrees I thought.

In went the lovely creamy creme brulee pots. With Cointreau. And expensive Madagascan vanilla.

We set the timer for 20 minutes. The recipe said 40 but it's always good to go and have a look after a bit.

At 20 minutes, we could see the tops getting quite brown.

Well, I know they're supposed to go brown after the sugar gets caramelised on the top - but brown before leaving the oven? I wasn't so sure.

I had another check on the website for the recipe. I googled the temperature conversion again. This time I used 'Centigrade' instead of 'Celsius'. The results came back looking like this.

Nealy 10 degrees cooler.

Ooops.

By the time I realised the oven was way too hot, and had whipped the brulees out of there, it was too late.

We had Cointreau and Vanilla flavoured scrambled egg.

Note, in the pictures, the lovely gathering of Madagascan vanilla seeds in the bottom of the concoction. Imagine how nice it should have tasted. Weep for the cream, sugar and Cointreau which will now go in the bin.