Sericaia com Ameixas de Elvas (Alentejo Egg Custard with Elvas Plums)

Portuguese convent desserts are almost all built from the same short list of ingredients, egg yolks, sugar, sometimes almonds, and I grew up on the versions from my grandmother’s corner of the country: encharcada (recipe on the site) and toucinho do céu (recipe on the site), both dense with yolks and almond.

Sericaia is the Alentejo’s answer to that same convent tradition, and the first time a friend from Elvas served it to me, warm and puffed straight from the oven, next to a little dish of syrupy plums, I remember thinking it tasted like a cross between a soufflé and a custard, lighter than anything in my own family’s dessert drawer.

Sericaia is a baked egg custard scented with cinnamon and lemon zest, said to have originated in the convents around Elvas, right on the border with Spain, and it puffs up dramatically in the oven before settling into a soft, faintly wobbly pudding as it cools. It is almost always served with ameixas de Elvas, small greengage plums that have been preserved in sugar syrup in that same town since at least the 1800s, and the tartness of the fruit against the sweet, cinnamon-dusted custard is really the whole point of the dish.

Ameixas de Elvas can be tracked down at Portuguese specialty grocers in the US or ordered online, though I have made this plenty of times with fresh plums poached in a simple syrup when I could not find the real thing, and nobody at my table complained. Serve it the way it is meant to be eaten, still a little warm, in shallow bowls, with the syrup pooling around it.

Sericaía Recipe

Prep time: 15 minutes · Cook time: 30 minutes · Total: 45 minutes · Servings: 6 · Calories: ~260 per serving

Ingredients

• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
• 1 1/4 cups (300ml) whole milk
• 1/3 cup (40g) all-purpose flour
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 1 cinnamon stick, plus ground cinnamon for dusting
• Pinch of salt
• 1 tablespoon butter, for greasing the dish
• Ameixas de Elvas or poached greengage plums, for serving

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Butter a 9-inch round or oval baking dish.
2. Warm the milk with the cinnamon stick and lemon zest in a small saucepan over low heat until just steaming, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let steep 10 minutes, then discard the cinnamon stick.
3. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar together until pale and slightly thickened, about 2 minutes.
4. Whisk in the flour and salt until smooth, then gradually whisk in the warm milk.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared dish and dust generously with ground cinnamon.
6. Bake 25 to 30 minutes, until puffed, golden, and just set in the center with a slight wobble, it will deflate as it cools, and that is normal.
7. Serve warm or at room temperature, in shallow bowls, with a few ameixas de Elvas and a spoonful of their syrup alongside.

Recipe Notes

• Ameixas de Elvas are small candied greengage plums from the Alentejo town of Elvas; look for them at Portuguese specialty grocers or online. In a pinch, poach pitted fresh plums in a simple syrup with a strip of lemon peel for 10 minutes.
• Sericaia is meant to fall as it cools, much like a soufflé, serve it within an hour of baking for the best texture.
• This is a doce conventual, a convent sweet, and shares its egg-yolk-forward DNA with other Portuguese classics like encharcada (recipe on the site) and toucinho do céu (recipe on the site), though sericaia is baked as a single custard rather than shaped.
• For a dairy-free version, whole milk can be replaced with a full-fat oat milk with good results, though the flavor will be slightly less rich.