Great find.

On a bored whim the other day, I dug out my old creme brulee torch (what? doesn't everyone have one?) I then headed to Barnes and Noble to finally buy a book I've stumbled upon many times before but always passed up.

I skimmed through the pages and pages of creme brulee recipes until I found the perfect one. The recipe that seemed impossible, yet amazingly yummy: Lemon lavender creme brulee.

Now, I'm no Wolfgang Puck, but I most certainly got into my head that not only could I pull off this creme brulee, but I was also going to find lavender in the middle of February. So, I grabbed my hubby and headed to the first place I could think of that carries the most obscure of food things... Houston's own Farmers Market. I seriously cannot get enough of the Farmer's Market (located off Airline) and that will have to be another entry all to its own.

We walked high and low throughout the market, sampling the freshest fruits and eyeing the greenest vegetables that Houston has to offer this time of year, until I came across a spice booth. Not only did I walk away with a small treasure (whole vanilla bean pods) but also a bag full of dried lavender!

We rushed home and I quickly got to work mixing the cream, simmering the lavender, zesting fresh lemon, and whisking egg yolks into submission. All the while my kitchen was overflowing with the smell of the most phenomenal dessert yet to come.

The hardest part was the waiting...waiting the 45 minutes for the perfectly filled ceramic ramekins to bake in the oven, and then then agonizing 2 hours it took to chill in the fridge. Then came the most exciting part of any creme brulee experience: using the torch to caramelize granulated sugar sprinkled on top of the custard. Its almost an empowering experience to take control over the tiny undeserving cup and burn its top layer into a solid disk of sugared glass.

When it was all said and done, my lavender lemon creme brulee smelled slightly like my favorite candle scent, but tasted better than I ever could have imagined. I was reminded why sometimes the best things to eat are the ones that take the longest to put together.

And of course, in my unpatient fury. I forgot to take a picture of the finished product. Hopefully this google'd version will suffice.

And in the meantime, when I want to fufill my desire to burn something and have a quick treat, I have found that the combination of my creme brulee torch and a marshmallow stuck at the end of a fork makes an excellent psuedo-smore.