Since true clafoutis are always made with cherries, calling this a cherry clafouti is redundant. Sorry about that. I did it to differentiate between this clafouti and the one I made last week with rhubarb. Only that one was really a flaugnarde, not a clafouti, since it wasn't made with cherries.
As we learned before, true clafoutis are made with unpitted cherries because the pit imparts a distinctive flavor. I wanted to find out if that is true. So I actually went out in search of black cherries. And I found them. They weren't fabulous, but they were the right kind. And they were on sale. Perfect!
Remember how clafouti is a glorified flan/pancake thing? With the rhubarb one, I had to pour a layer of batter in the bottom and bake it first, but with the cherries, you don't have to do that. And since we weren't even pitting the cherries, all I had to do was put the cherries in then pour the batter over them then bake it. Too easy.
Seriously. It was too easy. So I did some looking around at variations and made it a teensy bit more complicated. I added real vanilla from a vanilla bean. I heart vanilla. You knew that.
This is what I made. It was fabulous. Totally worth leaving the pits in. I'll never do pitless clafouti again.
Robin's Clafouti
- 10 inch tart dish
- butter to rub your dish with
- 1 to 1 1/2 lb black cherries, stems off, pits in. Yes, in.
- 3 T flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 4 eggs [You can get by with 3 if you have to.]
- 2 cups milk
- 1 vanilla bean
Clafouti is traditionally served at room temp. It's great that way. It was also great cold, right out of the fridge for breakfast.