I have watched a lot of YouTube tutorial videos on how to make crème brûlée and almost always, they require a water bath when baking it. But do you really have to do it that way? The answer is no. You can bake creme brulee as is in an oven at 100-110ºC for 60-90 minutes. I have done it several times already and it works.

There is a French guy named Alex who made a video showing the kitchen of a French restaurant while crème brûlée was being made. At 5:28, you can hear Alex asking the chef why vanilla is being infused in milk. The chef answers that it is better to infuse vanilla bean in hot milk. Then, at 6:27, you can see the chef placing the crème brûlée as is (no water bath) in the oven and explaining to Alex that he bakes it at low temperature.

The video below, made by Alex, clearly shows that this French restaurant uses both milk and heavy cream when they make crème brûlée. The ratio of hard cream to milk is not discussed in the video. I think it is misleading for so many videos in YouTube to say that crème brûlée consists of 100% heavy cream when Alex's video clearly shows a well known French restaurant in Paris making crème brûlée with a combination of milk and heavy cream.

However, I have found another video in YouTube made by a young Japanese guy showing how he makes crème brûlée. The young guy doesn't speak in the video and instead uses text overlay to explain what he is doing. The young guy explains that he finds using 100% heavy cream in crème brûlée too much to take. Instead, he uses 1/3 milk to 2/3 heavy cream. I have tried this ratio and it is really good. I have also tried 1/2 milk to 1/2 heavy cream and it's not as good as the one that uses 1/3 milk.