Far Breton

A batter rather than a custard, poured cold over soaked prunes, which sets dense and slightly chewy instead of wobbling.

Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg, dairy (butter), dairy (whole milk).

Ingredients

• 250 g prunes, stoned
• 4 tablespoons dark rum, or hot tea
• 150 g plain flour
• 120 g caster sugar
• 4 eggs
• 700 ml whole milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• a pinch of salt
• 30 g butter, melted, plus more for the dish

Method

1. IT IS A BATTER, NOT A CUSTARD, AND IT IS POURED COLD OVER THE PRUNES. That is the thing most people get wrong about this pudding: there is flour in it, a lot of flour, and it sets to something dense and faintly chewy rather than wobbling like a crème caramel. Treated as a custard -- baked low and slow, taken out with a wobble -- it is underdone and collapses. It wants a proper oven and it wants to be firm.
2. THE BATTER IS RESTED AN HOUR AND USED COLD. Resting lets the flour hydrate so it does not sit in grains, and cold batter into a hot dish rises at the edges and gives the dark puffed rim that is the best part.
3. THE PRUNES ARE SOAKED AND THEN DRAINED WELL, and they go in the dish FIRST, not stirred into the batter. Stirred in, they all rise to the top during baking and sit in a layer; laid in the bottom of a buttered dish, they stay put.
4. IT IS MIXED SMOOTH WITHOUT BEING AERATED. Whisked hard like a sponge, it rises and then sinks into a sunken middle. Flour, sugar and salt first, then eggs, then milk gradually -- stirred, not whipped.
5. Prunes covered with the rum or hot tea and left 1 hour, then DRAINED well.
6. Flour, sugar and salt in a bowl. The eggs added and stirred to a smooth thick paste with no lumps.
7. The milk poured in gradually, stirring rather than whisking, then the vanilla and the melted butter.
8. Passed through a sieve, covered, and RESTED in the fridge 1 hour.
9. A 24 cm dish buttered generously, including the sides.
10. Oven to 200C, with the empty dish put in for 5 minutes to heat.
11. The drained prunes scattered over the base of the hot dish.
12. The cold batter stirred once and poured over them.
13. Baked at 200C for 15 minutes, then down to 180C for 35 to 40 minutes, until deeply browned, puffed at the edges and FIRM to a press in the centre.
14. Cooled to warm or cold in the dish -- it sinks a little and that is correct. Dusted with icing sugar and cut in squares. Better on the second day.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under France · All recipes