French Prune Custard Cake

Enjoy this French custard cake recipe to make a classic French dessert - Far Breton - that combines prunes imbibed with rum in a rich, dense custard. 20 minutes of hands-on time rewards you with eight generous portions. A bonus: make ahead and take away options!

If you have never made French Far Breton (Far Breton aux pruneaux in French), a signature pastry from the Brittany region in France, I would highly recommend you give it a try.

You will fall in love with this easy Far dessert that will wow your guests. It is simple yet impressive.

With a few ingredients and effortless making, this French custard cake becomes a great go-to recipe.

The batter is similar to crepe batter; so, if you can make a batter for crepes, you will surely succeed with Far Breton!

It has such a creamy texture that it becomes a pleasure to spoon the cake directly from the baking dish, mainly if the piece contains a lot of prunes.

What is custard?

Custard is typically made of milk or cream, sugar, eggs, and sometimes also flour, corn starch, or even gelatin.

The custard's signature creamy texture is due to the egg itself (or egg yolk, in most cases).

Custard varies in consistency from a thin pouring sauce such as crème Anglaise to the thicker pastry cream (crème pâtissière in French), and to the thickest clafoutis, Far Breton and savory quiche.

Traditional Far Breton

The history of classic Far Breton, or Breton Far, goes back to the 18th century when it was made with buckwheat flour as a savory flan.

A sweet version of Far Breton made with prunes became popular in France in the 19th century.

Nowadays, traditional Far Breton is known as French prune tart and filled with prunes or raisins. The French also add vanilla sugar, rum, or plum liqueur to the Far batter.

Far Breton vs. clafoutis

Far Breton and clafoutis are both custards, and at first glance, their recipes have much in common.

However, Far Breton is more like a textured flan than a tender and light clafoutis.

Prunes are the signature fruit used to make the traditional Far Breton; although, raisins and even apples make other custard cake variations.

Classic clafoutis is baked with black cherries. Nowadays, other fruits such as plums, apples, pears, peaches, grapes, blackberries are used instead of cherries to make this delicious dessert. In these cases, the dish is technically called flaugnarde.

How to serve French Far dessert

Serve Far Breton warm or cold in a baking dish. The dessert has got a natural tendency to deflate as it cools.

To serve Far dessert out of the baking pan, butter and line the pan's bottom with

parchment paper

.

After baking, run a knife around the custard in a dish to loosen. Invert the baking pan onto parchment, sprinkled with icing sugar.

Remove the pan, peel off the paper, and quickly invert onto the serving plate. Sprinkle the top of the custard with icing (powdered) sugar.

Why you should try this recipe

1. Breton prune cake is one of the best breakfast ideas and a dessert to serve after dinner.
2. It is quite portable for picnicking and gathering with friends.
3. This prune flan recipe is budget-friendly and extremely easy to make.
4. 20 minutes of active, hands-on time rewards you with 8 generous servings.
5. Soaking prunes and making the batter in advance require 5 minutes of your busy time the next day to bring the custard in the oven.
6. Adding rum brings additional flavor.

Ingredients

For ingredients and detailed instructions, refer to the recipe card below.

Rum: use dark rum or replace it with calvados or plum liqueur to vary the taste. Omit alcohol to make the custard cake kid-friendly.

Tea: the recipe calls for two black tea bags.

Prunes: use stoned prunes or replace them with raisins if desired.

Flour: the recipe calls for all-purpose flour.

Sugar: use granulated white sugar or caster sugar to make Far Breton.

Salt: one pinch of salt makes a difference. It enhances the flavors of the dessert.

Eggs: use whole large-sized eggs at room temperature.

Butter: use unsalted, melted butter for this recipe.

Milk: whole milk is preferred, but you can replace it with low-fat milk.

How to make French prune cake

To soak prunes, place tea bags into warm water to infuse. Add rum, pitted prunes, and let it rest for two hours (photo 1). Drain prunes with a colander and set them aside.

Preheat oven to 395 F/200 C. Butter a square ceramic baking dish, and place the drained prunes on the bottom.

To make the batter, place eggs, sugar, and salt and in a bowl and mix with a hand whisk (photo 2).

Add flour and mix to combine (photo 2). Add the melted butter, cold milk, and rum and whisk until the mixture becomes homogeneous (photo 3).

Pour the batter on top of prunes (photo 5) and bake at 395/200 C F for 10 minutes. Then reduce the oven temperature to 345 F/170 C and bake for one-hour longer (photo 6).

Expert tips

1. Soak prunes for 2 hours one day ahead. Drain them, cover, and let stand at room temperature or in the fridge. You can soak prunes overnight as well.
2. Make the batter one day in advance as well, and keep it in the fridge.
3. Replace rum with calvados or plum liqueur to vary the taste or omit alcohol to make the custard cake kid-friendly.
4. Toss prunes in flour and add them into the poured batter (instead of arranging them on the bottom of the dish): they will float higher in the cake.
5. Soak some raisins with prunes to make Far Breton with two kinds of fruit if you prefer.
6. Don't open the oven during baking to prevent deflating the cake before it is ready!
7. Store Far Breton in the fridge for up to one to two days: its flavors and textures will mature, and it will become firmer.

Love custards? Try these next!

• Cherry Clafoutis
• Flan de Coco (Coconut Flan)
• Browse all the Custard Recipes

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Recipe card

The nutritional information has been calculated using an online recipe nutrition calculator such as Verywellfit.com and is intended for informational purposes only. These figures should be used as a general guideline and not be construed as a guarantee.

The recipe was adapted from https://www.meilleurduchef.com. It was originally published in February 2018. The recipe has been revised to include improved content and photos. All posted pictures are mine.