A while ago, at the Antwerp PR days, I came across this Le Petit Marseillais shower gel with basil & apricots. It smelled so good, I started wondering: what would it taste like? This combination is just bound to taste as good as it smells. So I looked up some recipes, altered one slightly, and baked a basil custard & roasted apricots pie. My colleagues and our intern loved it loads, my boyfriend thought it tasted like spaghetti. That’s how he got expelled from my tasting panel, by the way.


Ingredients:
 ready made pie crust (or make your own, but I’m often too lazy)
 8 apricots
 a good handful of basil leafs, stems included.
 milk (I use semi-skimmed)
 cream (I use light cooking cream)
 5 eggs
 sugar
 butter
 cornstarch

(I start off by blind baking my pie crust)



Make two cups of the following mixture: 3/4’s of milk & 1/4’s of cream. Pour 3/4’s of this mixture into a saucepan, add the basil (don’t cut off the stems! they have loads of flavor!) & bring to a simmer. Take the saucepan off the heat & let it stand for 15 minutes. The milk/cream mixture will now soak up the basil flavor.



Remove all of the basil stems & leafs and squeeze out the remaining milk. In a separate bowl, whisk the remaining milk, 4 egg yolks & 5 tablespoons of cornstarch until smooth. Add this to the basil flavored milk/cream mixture & bring to a simmer while whisking constantly. Whisk until the cream is quite heavy.



Take the saucepan off the heat & add 60 grams of butter. Whisk until the butter has melted completely. Then, scrape the cream into a bowl & let it cool down in the fridge. Tip: the wider the bowl, the faster it’ll cool down!



Now for the apricots. Cut the apricots in halves & remove the pit. Put a baking sheet onto a baking tray & place the halves on it. Sprinkle loads of sugar on them: this will make them glazy & extremely delicious. Let them roast in the oven at about 220°C for 15 minutes. You’ll then notice how the sugar will have melted completely. Now, transfer the apricots onto another baking tray lined with a fresh baking sheet. Grill the apricots until you notice the top to’ve turned slightly brown. Put them aside until they have cooled down completely.



When all separate components have cooled down, spread the basil infused cream onto the blind baked pie crust & stack the apricots on top. The original recipe asked for some glazing, but I don’t find it necessary as we’ve used loads of sugar on the apricots already.



ENJOY!