This is for Don.
Don showed up at a class I taught at Williams-Sonoma years ago and we’ve been food friends since. He’s one of those folks food writers love because he responds to newsletters and posts with encouraging words – a most treasured reader.
And he loves clafouti.
He’d never had it before my class, and he’s been a fan ever since.
Since it’s cherry season, and I’m on a bit of a Julia Child kick (there’s still time to enter), I wanted to share my recipe for this classic French country dessert traditionally made with cherries.
Clafouti, also spelled clafoutis and pronounced clah-foo-TEE, is a sort of a cakey flan baked custard. You get the idea. I puffs up when cooking, and then gently deflates, and lends itself to all kinds of fruit.
As I mentioned, the tradition is to make it with cherries, and the French leave in the pits for a more intense flavor.
In the interest of protecting dental work, I pit my cherries. You can do as you wish.
And in this case, I used brandied cherries that I’ve been holding from last year, and they gave the dessert a nice punch.
Feel free to play around with adding a couple tablespoons of liqueur, and varying your fruit all the way into fall, when pears and almonds are delicious together.
Another tradition is to sprinkle it with confectioners sugar, although in the photo I’ve skipped that step to give you the idea of what the clafouti looks like.
Quite simple, mais non?
Cherry Clafouti
Serves eight to ten
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
1 cup milk
½ cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 pint sweet or tart cherries, pitted
Confectioners sugar for dusting
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Generously butter a 10-inch round baking dish and set aside.
In large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, sugar and salt. In another bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, cream and vanilla. Pour into flour mixture and whisk to combine. Add cherries and gently fold to combine. Pour batter into baking dish and bake in the center of the oven until puffed and golden, about 35 to 40 minutes.
Cool slightly, then sprinkle with confectioners sugar and cut into wedges.
If you enjoy this post, please consider subscribing to my newsletter, or my feed. And are we Facebook,Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest friends yet? Photo and recipe by Janine MacLachlan, The Rustic Kitchen, www. RusticKitchen.com. All rights reserved.