Tuesdays with Dorie: Lemon (and Raspberry) Cup Custards

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was chosen by Bridget of The Way the Cookie Crumbles. I planned to make the lemon cup custards on Sunday evening, since Jerad's parents were coming over for dinner. After seeing everyone's comments on the TWD website (a lot of people complained that they were too eggy & not lemony enough), I decided to add fresh raspberries to the dishes and brulee the finished custards.


Dorie Greenspan herself added a comment to the discussion of texture:

Sorry that so many of you aren’t happy with the custard being eggy. Eggy is really what this custard is about. It’s meant to be jiggly, not Jello-y and it is, as some of you said, like flan. Making it less eggy, is making it a different recipe, so this just might be something that those of you who don’t care for this kind of texture, might want to skip. If you want a more lemony flavor, you can rub the lemon zest into the sugar, the way you’ve done with other lemon-and-sugar recipes, and you can add lemon extract or lemon oil — oil being stronger than extract.

I made the recipe without the added extract or oil and thought there was plenty of lemon flavor. Though, the raspberries did add another kind of tartness.

Everyone seemed to like the dessert expect for Jerad, who only really liked playing with the brulee torch.
He said: I would say that the use of the torch was the best aspect of the dessert. There were just too many different textures going on for my taste...crunchy sugar, tofu-like custard, & soft cooked fruit. My mouth was confused. Thank god for the FIRE.

She said: Yeah, the custard was pretty firm (aka slimey) like flan, but I thought the raspberries & crunchy sugar topping created a nice contrast in texture and flavor (sour, tart, & sweet). Overall, I was pretty happy with this dessert.