Many years ago I somehow managed to win two mystery weekend flights for two in one week. Young and struggling at the time, my husband and I were so excited, and shared one of the double tickets with my sister and brother-in-law. The mystery location turned out to be Wellington, and the weekend was freezing cold and rainy, but we had a blast. Thirty years later I still remember coming in from the blustery cold, to a little cafe in the city and eating the most delicious apple croissant cake. This probably tastes nothing like the cake of my memory, but the combination of croissants, apples and blackberries cooked in a mellow custard is absolutely beautiful. This cake can be eaten warm with vanilla bean icecream or at room temperature with some whipped cream. Yum.
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3 apples, peeled, cored and each cut into 12 wedges
1/3 cup water
1 tbsp caster sugar
5 good quality croissants, halved
2 cups fresh blackberries or boysenberries
4 eggs plus 2 egg yolks
3/4 cup whole milk
1 cup cream
1 1/4 cups caster sugar
3/4 cup ground almonds
1 tsp cinnamon or 1/2 tsp almond essence
1/3 cup flaked almonds
1 tbsp caster sugar
Preheat oven to 160˚C (325˚F) and line the base and sides of a 23cm spring form cake tin. Heat water and sugar in a large frypan over a medium heat and cook apple wedges until the water has absorbed and the apples are tender. Take off the heat and leave to cool.
In a big jug, beat eggs, yolks, sugar, milk and cream until pale. In a separate bowl mix ground almonds with cinnamon (or add almond essence to cream).
Layer a couple of croissants into the prepared tin, covering the base fully. Sprinkle over half the blackberries, apples and almond mix. Layer up with the remaining croissants, apples, blackberries and almonds – and now you can tear the croissants as you wish. Press down gently. Pour the cream, sugar and egg mixture over the croissants, coating everything fully. Leave to stand for an hour. Sprinkle with flaked almonds and sugar and bake for 45 minutes. The custard might puff up a little in the oven, then sink when you remove it – this is fine, it will set into a delicious creamy mix with the croissants. Leave to cool for at least half an hour before serving with whipped cream and/or vanilla bean ice cream. Serves 8 – 10.
Yummm! My mouth is watering – I think I'll be giving this one a try; thanks for sharing the recipe.
Epicurean
http://justdessertshere.blogspot.co.nz/
My pleasure – I hope you enjoy it! 🙂
I wanna bake it as soon as possible, so after layering the ingredients i have to leave it for 1 hour & then bake it????? thanks a lot again for sharing this lovely recipe, Bless You…
Haha! Perhaps you could leave it for 45 minutes… 🙂
Hi, I just discovered your blog and wanted to say that I really enjoyed reading it and looking at your beautiful photos. Your recipes look delicious and I will definitely try making this croissant cake and the lemon tart. Thanks!
Hi, thanks so much for your kind message – and I really hope you enjoy the cake and tart – two of my favourites! 🙂
Hi just stumbled across your site looking for a recipe to make a cake to use up my croissants and think your site is so beautiful, such lovely photo's of yummy food i cant wait to try and make!
Thanks for taking the time to leave a message Georgina, I hope you enjoyed it! 🙂
Hi, this looks like a great recipe! Did you use single or double cream?
Hi – I used double cream – I hope you give it a go! 🙂
Hey Sarah
Making this for the cafe today
HI Shelley – oh yay!!! I really hope you enjoy it, and it goes well 🙂 xx
Helen Sarah
<where I leave it,s hard to find croissants dough may I use puff dough?
Thank-you so much I enjoy yr recipes.
Hi Aimee – I’m not sure what you mean – the recipe uses croissants not dough…are you able to buy croissants? 🙂
I know this is a really old post but I just came across it. Can I make this the day before (work party) or is it really best the same day?
Hi Angie,
You can make this the day before, but it won’t look quite as spectacular as the longer it keeps the more slightly ‘sinky’ it gets…it should still taste great though 🙂
Can this be used with ready made custard please?
I’m afraid not 🙂
This looked so amazing that I had to give it a go. Mine looked just as good, however, it wasn’t cooked through… the recipe says cook at 160 for 45 minutes, mine is fan oven, so I adjusted it to 140 for the same amount of time. Should I have just stuck to 160? It still tasted lovely, but just collapsed as very wet in the middle…
Can’t wait to try this!