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Duchy Originals from Waitrose Cambridge Burnt Cream

Waitrose

29 July 2010

During research for its latest range of chilled desserts, Waitrose uncovered evidence the Brits and not the French invented the ever-popular Crème Brulee. Waitrose discovered an English Crème Brulee was allegedly first created in the kitchens of Trinity College Cambridge in the early part of the 17th Century after someone left the sugar out of the custard so put it on top instead. This is believed to be the first known record of a ‘Crème Brulee’ and is believed to be ahead of any French record! Next week Waitrose is reviving this forgotten pud with the launch of a chilled dessert called Cambridge Burnt Cream (£5.99) on August 2nd 2010. Cambridge Burnt Cream forms part of a range of ‘heritage’ inspired recipes that will launch under the new brand Duchy Originals from Waitrose.Since HRH The Prince of Wales was a student at Trinity College including Cambridge Burnt Cream as part of the new brand’s chilled dessert category made perfect sense. The dessert launches in stores next Monday ahead of the majority of Duchy Originals from Waitrose 300-strong lines, due to land in-stores in September. Jan Maish, Waitrose Product Developer says: “Waitrose believes the Brits and not the French developed the Creme Brulee, which is why we wanted to revive the traditional Cambridge Burnt Cream.“It is a perfect dessert to champion the Duchy Originals from Waitrose aim to preserve British food heritage by using traditional recipes."Most importantly it tastes gorgeous as it is a rich, slowly baked, ‘just set’ cream made with double cream, egg yolk and sugar, peppered with the tiny vanilla seeds that give it flavour. “It comes with a sachet of sugar to sprinkle on top , which can then be caramalised under a hot grill for the a sweet crunchy glaze to give the most satisfying end to this sweet."The producer of the Duchy Originals from Waitrose Cambridge Burnt Cream is Tamar Foods.The kitchen make chilled and baked desserts and are based in Launceston, Cornwall. It specialise in short runs, hand made and hand finished products. All cream and milk they use is sourced from the West Country- Ends-For product samples and further information please contact Nancy Wainscoat at ZPR on 07862242515 or email: nancy@z-pr.comNotes to EditorsIt is possible to see the first recipe for a burnt cream-style sweet in François Massialot’s cookbook in 1691 in France. It may be telling that by the 1731 edition of Massialot’s “Cuisinier roial et bourgeois”, he had changed the name of the same recipe from "crème brûlée" to “crème anglaise”.(There are other sources that in South of France the French called this dish Creme Catalan, which may be related to the Spanish who also claim they invented the dish calling it Creme Catalana.)But Waitrose discovered evidence exists to say that Trinity College Cambridge is the origin of the sweet custard. Some claim the college was the first producer of the dessert in the 1600’s - thereby predating Massialot’s book - where they named it ‘Cambridge Burnt Cream’. Over time this original recipe became known as Trinity Cream and the college coat of arms was branded in the sugar topping before serving.This view is supported by fact that it was not until the late 19th century when the French translation of burnt cream i.e Crème Brulee became widely used, which may be the cause of people believing the French invented the dish.