So you know I’m not really a pie girl. Oh, I like to eat them all right, but making them? Not so much. Most of that I chalk up to my inability to make a pie crust. Using the frozen crust just seems like cheating to someone like me who makes everything from scratch. But honestly, I can’t even get the crust that you manually roll into the pie plate to look right so it’s the frozen crust for me.

I make pies for the holidays. Usually they are pecan, chocolate and pumpkin because those are the crowd pleasers.  Truthfully, if given the choice between a piece of apple pie over other tasty options, I would chose the other kinds. But I found this recipe for French Apple Custard Pie and it intrigued me. Personally, the creamier the dessert, the better. Lucky for me, the smooth texture only adds to the apple pie. It was FAB!

To start, I pre-heated my ever perfect preformed frozen pie crust for 20 minutes. Then I adjusted the oven temperature down to 325 degrees.

Then I put 2 tablespoons of butter into my stir fry pan over medium heat.

When the butter was melted, I added the apples that I had peeled, cored and sliced along with 2 tablespoons of sugar. I sauteed the apples for about 8 minutes until they were soft but not mushy.

Then I added the rum.

Whisk together eggs, egg yolks, cream, the 1/2 cup sugar, vanilla, nutmeg, and the remaining 1/8 teaspoon salt.

Pour over apples in the pie crust.

Bake pie until custard is barely set in center, about 30 minutes.

Combine the almonds, the 1/3 cup sugar, and the remaining 2 tablespoons butter in a bowl. Remove pie from the oven; sprinkle pie with topping. Cover pie with a pie shield if the edge of the crust seems to be over-browning.

Return pie to oven; bake until custard is almost set but still slightly jiggly in the center, 15 to 20 minutes more. Completely cool pie before slicing or chill pie, then bring it to room temperature when ready to serve.

French Apple Custard Pie

2 tablespoon butter
2 lbs apples — I used 5 Granny Smith apples
2 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon dark rum
1/4 teaspoon table salt — divided
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 325F.

You will want to prebake your piecrust.

Melt the 2 tablespoons utter in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add apples and the 2 tablespoons of sugar; saute until apples are soft but not mushy, 8 to 10 minutes. Stir in rum and 1/8 teaspoon of salt. Spread apples over the bottom of the prebaked pie crust.

Whisk together eggs, egg yolks, cream, the 1/2 cup sugar, vanilla, nutmeg, and the remaining 1/8 teaspoon salt; pour over apples in pie crust.

Bake pie until custard is barely set in center, about 30 minutes.

Combine the almonds, the 1/3 cup sugar, and the remaining 2 tablespoons butter in a bowl. Remove pie from the oven; sprinkle pie with topping. Cover pie with a pie shield if the edge of the crust seems to be over-browning.

Return pie to oven; bake until custard is almost set but still slightly jiggly in the center, 15 to 20 minutes more.

Completely cool pie before slicing or chill pie, then bring it to room temperature when ready to serve.

There is one tablespoon of rum in this pie which I honestly couldn’t really detect. I even had a second piece just to be sure. But I do believe that it lends a little different taste to the apples even though it’s not a distinct rum taste.

The pie needs to cool to room temperature before you have any hope of getting it out of the pie plate in one piece. Don’t forget to have patience because this pie is FAB and worth the wait!

Tags: apples, cream, pie, rum