Classy Clafoutis
Another way to use your summer fruit
While it is very clear that autumn is on the way we are still very much in summer fruit season. We’ve got peaches, plums, nectarines, and grapes, plus all the berries we froze earlier this summer and haven’t (ahem!) raided as of yet.
And while I adore chocolate, nuts, coconut, and caramel things there’s nothing really seasonal about them. I can have chocolate in January but fresh fruit are a little harder to come by. So while the local (or relatively local) produce continues to roll in I’m sticking to fruit-based desserts.
If you squint hard enough you can even imagine fruity desserts being in the “healthy” category.
The French, I am biased to say, have a way with dessert. French cuisine has seemingly endless ways to combine flour, eggs, milk, and butter in various proportions to produce an incredible range of appareil: the doughs, batters, and custards that make their famous pastries and desserts. It’s pretty close to culinary magic.
Clafoutis (or the more Anglicized spelling “clafouti”) originates in the Limousin region of France. Think southwest-central France and you have the right idea. It’s a mostly rural area most famous for its eponymous cattle, but also chestnuts, apples, and other fruits. It’s the cherries though that make clafoutis famous.
Imagine a giant, thick, custardy crepe that’s almost all fruit with just a little batter holding it together and you’ve got clafoutis.
Traditional clafoutis uses unpitted cherries. The purpose, however, is not to make dentists profitable but rather for flavour. Cherry pits contain benzaldehyde, the flavour we associate with almond extract and it works rather well with the flavour of the fruit. If you would prefer to pit your cherries in advance you can always add a little almond flavour, or even add a little kirch or other complementary liqueur flavours.
Cherries are by no means your only option. Almost any fruit is can be made into clafoutis. Frozen or fresh you’ll have dessert in about an hour.
Today I made clafoutis with frozen blueberries. You can make the batter and pitch it in the fridge in the morning, or even the night before and bake before dinner. If you’ve got a blender this comes together in a snap. If you don’t have a blender whisk everything except the fruit and strain out any lumps.
Many recipes will allow and encourage you to cover the bottom of your pan with fruit and top with batter. However, baking a little of the batter to a light set before adding the fruit ensures that it sits in the middle and does not sink to the bottom. It shows you pay attention to the details, and that’s what technique is: details.
If you can make crepes you can make a clafoutis. In fact, it’s easier because it bakes in the oven and there’s no flipping involved. Memorize the basic formula and you can make this with whatever, whenever.
The Gear:
Blender
Spatula
Measuring cups
Measuring spoons
Glass pan (8x8, or a 10 inch pie plate)
The Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups milk [300 ml]
3 large eggs
2/3 cups of white granulated sugar (divided in half, 1/3 cup each) [75 grams each]
1/2 cup all purpose flour [75 grams]
1 teaspoon [5ml] vanilla and/or almond extract
pinch of kosher salt
3 cups fruit, fresh or frozen, chopped to bite-sized if necessary [425ml]
Butter, for greasing pan
The Technique:
Preheat the oven to 350F/175C.
Grease pan with butter.
Blend milk, eggs, 1/3 cup sugar, flour, vanilla, and salt for 45 seconds, or until fully combined.
Pour a small quantity of batter into pan, filling to 1/2 inch (about 1.25 cm)
Bake until batter is very lightly set, about 5-6 minutes. It will still be liquid in the middle.
Scatter fruit evenly over batter and top with remaining 1/3 cup sugar.
Cover evenly with remaining batter.
Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until golden and set (but slightly wobbly) in the middle.
Making a pie is a project and cakes are mostly for special occasions. The French nailed summer desserts by inventing clafoutis: quick, easy, and adaptable to whatever fruit you have on hand. It doesn’t need to be complicated to be classy.