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France and the Alps · Volume 11, Butter, Cider and the Buckwheat Line

Far breton

Brittany

Far breton, a dense custardy baked cake studded with prunes: a thick slice of a dense, custardy golden brown baked cake studded with dark purple prune halves, its top deeply caramelised and slightly domed.

An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.

Time
4 hours 40
Researched
Researched from 72 sources in the brief, none yet linked in the text
Reviewed
Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
Cooked
Not yet cooked and reported

First recorded in the 18th century as a flour-based porridge eaten alongside meat, not as a dessert; the name comes from Breton farz forn, far baked in the oven. Prunes, now near-universal in the dish, arrived by an unusually specific trade route: Breton cod fishermen working months-long voyages to Newfoundland, the Terre-Neuvas, traded fish for prunes, a Southwest French speciality, bringing the fruit home into Breton kitchens this way rather than by any local orchard tradition.

As tradition built it

Serves 8. Batter rests 4 hours, then bakes 40 minutes at 200°C.

Ingredients

Method

  1. Make a thick, eggy, milk-based batter from the flour, eggs, sugar and butter.
  2. Stud with whole or halved prunes.
  3. Bake until set, with a deep golden top.

Notes

No specific historical recipe with fixed quantities survives in the sourcing behind this chapter; the dish's structure is well attested, the exact ratios are not.

What a modern chef changes

Prunes macerated in Calvados, a steady Big Green Egg bake, and a chinois-passed batter

Method

  1. Macerate the prunes in a little warmed Calvados before baking, following the same cider-and-apple-spirit logic that runs through the rest of the Norman half of this volume, a genuine cross-regional pairing rather than an imported flourish, since prunes and Calvados both already belong to this coast's own pantry.
  2. Bake at a lower, longer, more stable heat than a standard oven gives, using the Big Green Egg's own steady indirect setting, for a properly set, custardy interior without the dry, over-browned edge a hotter domestic oven tends to produce on a dish this simple.
  3. Pass the batter through a chinois before baking, catching any unbeaten egg strand, for the smooth, dense set the dish is actually known for.
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