Crème brûlée means “burnt cream,” and is one of the all-time-great desserts. The first recorded recipe for this custard with a burnt caramel crust is in François Massialot’s 1691 cookbook Cuisinier royal et bourgeois. Last seen as crême à l’Angloise in 1740, the recipe more or less vanished from French cuisine until the 1980s. How anything so…