Monday 18 May 2020

Super Simple Clafoutis


Grown and photographed by Susan Walter.  Tour the Loire Valley with a classic car and a private guide.
Burlat cherries, an early variety, picked at the end of May in our orchard last year.

This is a reposting of a recipe I first shared in June 2010. It has always been popular and many of my friends and readers use this recipe when they make this well known local dessert.

Photographed by Susan Walter.  Tour the Loire Valley with a classic car and a private guide.
Flour made from locally grown wheat.

A recipe for the all too brief cherry season. Clafoutis is a sort of riff on the Dutch Baby style of thick puffy pancake. It's really a pancake batter with fruit in it and baked in the oven. I habitually spiff it up a bit by replacing some of the flour with almond meal.

Cooked and photographed by Susan Walter.  Tour the Loire Valley with a classic car and a private guide.
Individual clafoutis ready for the oven.

Ingredients
Butter, to grease the dish/es
50 g plain flour
50 g almond meal
2 eggs
100 g castor sugar
250 ml milk or buttermilk (Fr. lait ribot)
300g cherries, washed, stems removed

Method
  1. Turn the oven to 180°C and set your baking dish or dishes on a baking tray. You can make one large clafoutis, round (eg in a quiche dish) or retangular (eg in a gratin dish), or 3 - 4 individual clafoutis (eg in souffle dishes).
  2. Butter the dish/es.
  3. Put flour, almond meal, eggs, sugar and milk into a tall jug and mix to a batter with a stick blender.
  4. Pour the batter into your prepared dish/es.
  5. Drop the cherries on top.
  6. Cook for 30-40 minutes.
Cooked and photographed by Susan Walter.  Tour the Loire Valley with a classic car and a private guide.
 Individual clafoutis in old ceramic pâté dishes.

Can be frozen and gently reheated in a very low oven.

Photographed by Susan Walter. Tour the Loire Valley with a classic car and a private guide.
 Lait ribot (buttermilk).

Cooked and photographed by Susan Walter. Tour the Loire Valley with a classic car and a private guide.
Mixing the batter.

Photographed by Susan Walter. Tour the Loire Valley with a classic car and a private guide.
Sour cherries from our orchard, destemmed and washed, ready for clafoutis.


Cooked and photographed by Susan Walter. Tour the Loire Valley with a classic car and a private guide.
The quantity in the recipe above fits perfectly in a standard 24 cm ceramic quiche dish.

Cooked and photographed by Susan Walter. Tour the Loire Valley with a classic car and a private guide.
Made in a quiche dish, with sour cherries from our orchard and fresh out of the oven.

Photographed by Susan Walter. Tour the Loire Valley with a classic car and a private guide.
Freshly picked sour cherries (left) and sweet cherries (right) from our orchard.
The sweet cherries are a late variety called Giant.

Cooked and photographed by Susan Walter. Tour the Loire Valley with a classic car and a private guide.
Apricot clafoutis.

Mirabelle clafoutis. Cooked and photographed by Susan Walter. Tour the Loire Valley with a classic car and a private guide.
Mirabelle clafoutis (mirabelles are small plums).


Yum

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4 comments:

Jean said...

Your clafoutis recipe is the one I always use. Sadly our cherry tree has died. It suffered in the heat last year and although we had some cherries from it after that it gave up. Nicole sent us some photos and it's just stalks now. Digging it out will be one of the many gardening jobs for when we eventually get back to France.

Susan said...

If your mirabelle is still flourishing, they make a great clafoutis. I used some of the ones you gave me last year in clafoutis.

Jean said...

Susan, as we are unlikely to be around when the plums are ready, do feel free to help yourself. We are keen that they should be used rather than wasted.

Susan said...

Thanks! That would be great. I assume I need to check with Nicole to get in?

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