crème brûlée
11
7.0
- noun
- /krɛm bruˈleɪ/
:
crème brûlée
- For dessert, I ordered a smooth and creamy crème brûlée topped with a crisp layer of caramelized sugar.
- crème brûlée dessert
- Chocolate crème brûlée
- vanilla crème brûlée
Examples
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People here eat arugula salads, crab bisque, crème brûlée.
Fiction book (2002) -
All right, first off, we have a delicious crème brûlée.
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Start plating the creme brulee.
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I make a mean crème brûlée.
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Do you have crème brûlée?
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We finished off the night with the crème brûlée that was just as good.
Blog text (23) -
Someday I hope to make the perfect crème brûlée.
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I would love to know a good recipe for crème brûlée.
Blog text (21) -
We had a wonderful meal of quail in wine followed by cups of rich coffee and orange crème brûlée.
Fiction book (1995) -
With the sweetness of crème brûlée and the aroma of cold coffee, this was a sweet treat that seemed more like a dessert than beer.
Blog text (17)
Synonyms
16
7.3
A dessert with a thin hard layer of caramelized sugar on top
How Firm
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound literally combines crème (cream) + brûlée (burnt), so a learner who knows both constituents can infer a cream-based dessert with a caramelized/burnt sugar topping. Although borrowed from French as a fixed dish name, the meaning is compositionally clear and matches cross-linguistic equivalents, making it readily predictable.
Etymology
Crème brûlée gets its name from French: crème means 'cream' and brûlée means 'burnt'. The dessert is a smooth custard with sugar on top that is burned with a hot tool until it becomes a hard, crackable crust, so the 'burnt' top explains the name and the dessert today.