Orange-Raspberry Pots De Creme

I've been making this recipe for a year or two ever since I first saw it on The Pioneer Woman's website. The beauty of it is that it only takes a few minutes to prepare. And you do it ALL in the blender. You could make this with as few as 4 ingredients, or add a few extras for oomph. It looks super fancy, and tastes so rich and decadent that you could easily fool your guests into thinking that it has taken hours of cooking over a hot stove.

I made a few tweaks to the original recipe, just to switch up the flavor profile a bit. Other than that, all credit goes to the inspirational and beautiful Ree Drummond!

INGREDIENTS:

12 oz chocolate chips
4 eggs
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 cup piping hot strong coffee * (see my suggestions)
1 cup frozen or fresh raspberries
Zest from 1 orange
1 tbsp Triple Sec (I used DeKuypers, but if you're fancy, by all means get the Cointreau or something.)

Whipped Cream for topping.

DIRECTIONS:

First brew about 1-2 cups of coffee -- very strong.

I would suggest using double the normal quantity of coffee grounds to what you normally use, to assure a really concentrated flavor.  Personally, I made my coffee as Pour-Over (which, for the uninitiated, is exactly what it sounds like: A method of manually pouring hot water through a coffee filter in a cone straight into a measuring cup.) For my pour-over, I used about 3 tablespoons of coffee beans, to 1.5 cups of boiling water (assuming that almost half the water will get trapped into the ground coffee).

To really extract the flavors, I actually ran the coffee through the same grounds 2 more times. I'm sure there are baristas that would faint from reading that, but I'm just keeping it real!

Get your blender set up and have all your ingredients ready.

Distribute the raspberries evenly into the bottoms of ramekins, small demitasse coffee cups, or mini Mason jars. 


Next crack the eggs into the bottom of the blender, add the chocolate chips, liqueur, and salt.

Zest an entire orange and add the zest into the mixture.

Run blender on high, until there is a pudding-like texture.  While that's happening, microwave your coffee for a minute again to make sure it's super hot. It has to be hot enough to set the egg-proteins up like a custard. Pour the coffee into the blender, and run it on high again to mix in the coffee, and then immediately pour the mixture into the prepared ramekins or jars. Let it set up in the fridge for at least 2-4 hours before serving.

Top with whipped cream, some raspberries, and/or orange rind for a nice garnish. And pace yourself. You'll want to eat it all really fast, but also want to savor each bite.

FLAVOR SUBSTITUTIONS:
Ideas that could be swapped for the orange/ raspberry combo, would be to use mint extract, Kahlua, vanilla extract, or a shot or two of spiced rum just to take this in a different direction.   Or use white chocolate chips and instead of coffee, try using very hot, double-strength Earl Grey tea and lemon zest. Lots of variations that might be fun to experiment with.