Peach custard for a variety of dietary needs...
I made a dessert last weekend that I’m pretty proud of. It didn’t entirely come out perfectly but it was delicious and easy, so I am willing to forgive it a few cosmetic and texture flaws that I think can be worked out with a little more care.
Basically, I Needed to make a dessert that could be sugar-free, gluten-free, and use a lot of frozen peaches left over from last summer, with peach season looming once more. I hit on the idea of an unsweetened peach custard with a ginger-honey-peach syrup on the side.
I thawed the frozen peaches and centrifuged them in a salad spinner to get as much juice out as possible. Then I made a standard quiche-style custard (for each egg, enough milk/cream to make 1/2 cup of liquid when combined) with a pinch of salt and some vanilla—three cups of that) and stirred the whole thing together in a pie plate, which I baked at 350 until it was set.
I took the reserved peach juice, reduced it with a knob of ginger, and stirred in honey while it was warm to make a syrup.
It all tasted delicious, and the sugar-free person could just skip the syrup, while the rest of us stirred it into the custard before eating. The only problem was that the custard was a little runny in spots from overly-juicy peaches, and curdled in a few places from the same.
I think this could be solved by longer draining of the peaches, or perhaps drying them out or cooking them down a little, which would have the advantage of concentrating the flavor.