TWD: Drunken Lemon Custard - Don't Drink the Hater-Ade!

WOW was the TWD community up in arms over this week’s recipe! Bridget of The Way the Cookie Crumbles (click for recipe) chose Lemon Cup Custard. I was a bit nervous this week and knew my work would be ahead of me after reading the P&Q (what does that stand for?) section for this recipe. Let me give you a little taste of the adjectives that were floating around:

Eggy

Bland

Boring

Blah

Gross

Yucky

POOP

OK, no one said poop, but I like to throw that word around pretty loosely. The fact is, they may as well have. The people who had made it didn’t like it. The people who didn’t make it were scared.

The great Dorie herself had to address the TWD community to clear the air. This recipe was supposed to be similar to a flan, she informed us. A custard is, in fact, eggy. It is eggs, milk, and sugar. Eggy.

My mind got to thinking. What makes anything better? Chocolate? No. That wouldn’t work.

Bacon? Well, yes, of course, but I don’t know if I could go that far.

Alcohol?

Oh, yeah.

I liberally added some Grand Marnier to the mixture of eggs and sugar. I then juiced an entire lemon into the mixture.

I said a small prayer.

Somehow, I wanted to add some fruit to the dish. Recently, I’ve seen recipes for clafoutis all over the internet. I never knew what a clafoutis was. For a while, I actually thought it was a disease.

How bad is it, Doc?

It’s not looking good.

Is it….?

….Yes. She’s come down with clafoutis.

WHY, GOD, WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY???????

But actually, a clafoutis is a baked custard studded with fruit. I decided to add a tablespoon of flour to the boiled milk to firm up the custard. I then added a layer of blueberries to the bottom of one ramekin and topped it with the egg mixture.

To the other ramekin, I added the liquored up custard sans blueberries. To top that version, I combined ½ cup blueberries, 2 tablespoons sugar, and 2 tsp Grand Marnier (I have a problem) in a small saucepan and cooked that until the blueberries released their juices. I then reduced it down for about 6 minutes and let it cool.

I wasn’t drinking on the hater-ade with this. I LOVED this. And normally, I'm not a fan of lemon. I would go as far as to say I hate lemon. And although I don’t hate custards, they don’t make me do back flips. But I did back flips when I spooned this into my mouth. Creamy. Tart. Smooth. And not boozy at all. The flavor was just subtly enhanced by the Grand Marnier. I took a spoonful. I sighed. I then took another taste. And another. It only got better. Suddenly, I looked down and saw that half of a ramekin was empty. I actually had to stop myself from eating a whole ramekin all by myself! I almost lost my willpower! I liked the clafoutis-style custard better than the one topped with the reduced berries, but that version was also delicious. Jack thought it was delicious, and actually thought the lemon and Grand Marnier mix had an interesting flavor that resembled grapefruit (I didn't get that, but to each his own!).

Clafoutis may sound like a disease, but it is one tasty disease!

Don’t drink the hater-ade until you try this version! And check out the other TWDers for their take on the misunderstood lemon cup custard!