We call this delightful apple and fig custard recipe “dessert for breakfast.”
Recipe information
Yield
8 Servings
Ingredients
4
2
½
2
1
3
⅔
2
¾
½
1
2
6
Preparation
Step 1
Place rack in top third of oven; preheat to 450°. Butter a shallow 2-qt. baking dish and sprinkle with demerara sugar. Combine granulated sugar and zest in a medium bowl. Scrape in seeds from vanilla bean; save pod for another use. Massage zest and seeds into sugar with your fingers until mixture is very fragrant.
Step 2
Blend eggs in a blender until very frothy, about 1 minute. With motor running, gradually stream in milk, then brandy. Add sugar mixture, crème fraîche, flour, and 1 tsp. salt and blend just until smooth. Let custard rest while you roast the apples.
Step 3
Cook remaining 4 Tbsp. butter in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring often, until butter foams, then browns (do not let it burn), about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add apples, a pinch of salt, and remaining 2 Tbsp. demerara sugar and toss to coat.
Step 4
Arrange apples in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet. Roast in oven, tossing halfway through, until caramelized and tender, 25–30 minutes. Let apples sit until they are cool enough to handle but still warm (otherwise they’ll stick), then arrange in prepared dish, reserving a few slices for placing on top. Add figs, reserving a few for on top. Place dish on a rimmed baking sheet and carefully pour custard over fruit. Arrange reserved apple slices and figs on top. Reduce oven temperature to 375° and bake custard until golden and center is firm, 30–35 minutes. Let cool slightly before serving.
Step 5
Do Ahead: Custard can be blended 1 day ahead. Cover and chill. Bring to room temperature and mix gently before pouring over fruit.
Nutrition Per Serving
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Reviews (6)
Back to TopWorked well, not too sweet. I modified the recipe slightly using 4 small eggs and increasing the other quantities roughly evenly without much trouble. I used 4 and half apples and enough figs to spread evenly in the dish. Didn't have any demarara sugar but white sugar did the job. Cooking time was closer to 50 mins though, with the edges becoming crispy by the end. I found the roasting time for the apple probably should have been 25 minutes on the top shelf - 30 was too long for me. If I were to make it again, to save time I would prepare the apple first and then the do custard while they pre-cook in the oven. I had supermarket figs which were a little bland in flavour, so I pressed the cut halves into some white sugar first and let them sit white the apple was in the oven - which worked okay. Although if I found myself with less than flavoursome fruit again I would probably try pre-roasting them briefly as well. I upped the quantities slightly and made enough for 5 people, but you could probably get 5 servings out of the original recipe, or comfortably 4.
Iax Mandern
3/21/2022
Deep thanks to the first reviewer, who gave me confidence to make this dish. Like that reviewer says, this dish seems extremely complex (and if you follow every single direction to the T, it might be) but it's really quite simple and more importantly, very tasty. My dad bought late-summer figs and we had no idea what to do with them, so this is what we went with! I simplified the recipe a tad because we just don't have a very well-stocked kitchen and I'm a novice baker: swapped vanilla extract for vanilla bean and light sour cream for the creme fraiche, omitted the brandy, and used two 9-inch pie dishes instead of the 2-qt baking dish. It turned out delightful: the custard was soft and creamy, and the apples added warm sweetness and a little bit of tartness. We ate it with some vanilla ice cream. Couldn't really taste the figs, but they looked beautiful. All and all, a lovely recipe from Claire, and if I can butcher it and make a million substitutions and it still came out that well, then I'm sure it would be even tastier the original way.
Princeton, NJ
8/9/2020
This recipe seems intimidating but it's really not. First off, crème fraîche is just sour cream with a little half and half mixed in. If you don't have a vanilla bean just put in a tablespoon of vanilla extract, but if you are trying to impress, don't skimp on the vanilla bean. All in all, I loved this recipe. The figs in this were delicious and the apples worked well with them.
Anonymous
MN
9/3/2018