I would not make the substitutions for the glaceed fruit - it does mean "candied", and the only thing remotely similar would be dried fruit or possibly preserves. Fresh fruit substitutions would be too wet, and even preserves might have too much liquid, although they might work in this recipe. Dried fruit will not be sweet enough.

You could substitute strawberry jam for apricot, but apricot is preferred because it doesn't have seeds.

If this recipe were truly custard, then it would have eggs and milk or cream in it. It sounds more like a bread pudding, however, with cake substituted for the bread.

If you are making that many substitutions, you will be making up your own recipe, which is fine, but you will need to give it a new name! As a substitute for rum, you could use some diluted molasses or fruit syrup - I have bought the Torani brand. You may want to add some vanilla extract as well. I'm assuming there is not much rum in it. Some substitutions will make the recipe sweeter and some will make it less sweet, and so you will have a balancing act to perform.

My suggestions are purely conjectural and have not been tested, but I thought they might give you a starting point for ideas. It's very easy to customize desserts.

Lars

Brad, have you a recipe....or are you going by what you THINK she did?
If you can post an actual recipe someone can give you ideas of substitutions.
Linda C

Lars, thank you so much for your help! They are great suggestions!

Linda C, I wrote down the ingredients for the custard as I watched it. So don't fret! Here is what I have written down. Please bear with me as I'm not used to writing recipes like this one. This may help answer further questions/concerns.

1 cup glaced fruits (she didn't say how many cherries to go on top but they looked glaced as well)
1 quart of milk
5 whole eggs plus 5 yolks
1 cup of sugar
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
Store bought pound or sponge cake (the rectangle ones)
Chopped almonds (optional;to go on after it's all done)

Glaze (Optional)
1/2 cup apricot jam
1 Tablespoon sugar

Soak fruits in hot/boiling water for a minute to 2 minutes. Drain. Set aside. Heat milk over the stove (hers was hot enough that a skin formed on top). Break eggs and yolks into a large bowl. Beat in 1 cup sugar gradually. Then add the milk gradually. Add vanilla. Line an 8 x 8 pan (two inches high she said) with wax paper (she took the wax paper and set it against some blue paper and drew lines so there are nine servings). Lay cherries onto each square as you like (decoratively). Cut off the sides and bottom of the cake, then cut the cake into half inch slices lengthwise, then into squares. Place a square over each cherry section. Ladle custard over cake carefully. Spoon fruit over first layer evenly. Repeat until pan is filled. Place the pan into a pan of water. Water should be halfway to the custard pan. Set oven to 350 degrees. Bake for about an hour. A special note she said was to keep an eye on the water so it doesn't bubble rapidly. Rest for about 20 minutes or even overnight was better she said.

Now for the glaze. Strain 1/2 cup of jam through a sieve. In a saucepan, add jam and Tablespoon of sugar. Let it boil until it gets sticky. This can be made ahead and reheated.

When the custard has set, flip it onto a plate (or whatever you have that's large enough). Peel off the wax paper. Cut into slices or leave whole if desired. Brush with glaze and add almonds and serve.

Whew! Julia sure knew what she was doing! Sorry for the length but this was an entire episode of The French Chef.

Brad AKA Moonwolf

Sounds wonderful!
Won't work with anything but glaceed or maybe candied fruit.
It's very like a trifle, but the custard is baked with the cake.
What happens here is the cake absorbs some of the milk and egg mix then you put on a layer of fruit, another layer of cake squares, more custard and bake it until all gets firm.
I believe you will need to chill it before you can flip it onto a plate. You can use strawberry jelly for the glaze if you wish....then there will be no need to strain it.
Another thing you could do is to skip the glaceed fruit all together....just layer cake and custard and bake it....then chill, flip out and layer the top with sliced strawberries, and brush the top with melted strawberry jelly, chill again and just before serving squirt on some of that whipped cream in a pressurized can.
Good luck.
Linda C

Thank you, Linda!

I like the sound of your version of the custard cake. I think people will like it! If and when I do make it, I'll let you all know how it turned out! Thank you so much again!

Brad AKA Moonwolf