Cherry Clafoutis Recipe

 

When Grenoble starts to get hot, and it can get very very hot, people go up in the mountains searching for fresh air. There, you can either go hiking, or joining one of the summer activities proposed by the ski stations, or simply to take the lift and walk next to a lake for a picnic. Next to one of those small lakes that several months ago were covered in snow and you rode beside them lots of times while skiing. For that picnic, a good idea is to bring a cherry clafoutis, as it coincides with the season, and with that clafoutis drink a glass of a cold rosé d’Anjou, a rose wine that goes very well with.

The clafoutis is the quintessential French dessert with cherries, it is a specialty rather old from the regions of Limousin and Auvergne, in the center of France, but well spread all around the country, nowadays. The traditional recipe is very simple and is made with very few ingredients, although you can find lots of  “enriched” variations. Moreover, there is a popular dilemma about whether to pit the cherries or not, since they were never removed in the past. The main reason to claim cherries with bones is that they lose less juice while baking and consequently, they are juicier and tastier. I am one of those who do not remove the bone.

Cherry Clafoutis Recipe

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Serves: 4 Time: 1 h Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients

• 250 ml milk
• 75 g flour
• 90 g sugar
• 1 vanilla bean (optional)
• 2 eggs of size M
• 500 g cherries, washed (optionally boneless)
• Butter, for greasing the pan
• Icing sugar, for dusting.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 200° C, heat up and down.
2. Grease the pan with butter.
3. Place the cherries in bottom of the pan.
4. Cut the vanilla bean in half lengthwise and scrape the seeds carefully.
5. In a bowl, mix well with a whisk the remaining ingredients together with the vanilla seeds
6. Pour the mixture carefully into the pan, it does not necessarily have to cover completely the cherries.
7. Bake for 30 min. When the time has passed, insert a toothpick in center of cake and if it comes out dry, the clafoutis is ready. Otherwise, bake for 5 more minutes.
8. Let it cool before eating.
9. At serving time, sprinkle with some icing sugar.

Hints, Tips, and Tricks

• It goes very well with a glass of rose wine well chilled, preferably reosé d’Anjou.
• It’s great with a scoop of plain ice cream.
• Instead of using a vanilla bean, you can use a teaspoon (or two, to taste) of vanilla essence. Either you can substitute some of the sugar for vanilla sugar (or adding it, as you prefer).
• You can substitute half of the milk with cream (optional).
• You can substitute half the flour with powdered almonds  (optional).

 

Categories: cocina francesa postres recipe

Tags: cerezas clafoutis flan postres tarta