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Friday, June 8, 2012

Cherry Clafouti

Annual Repost --

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 before 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
Heat oven to 350.   Butter the tart dish well.  Arrange cherries in the bottom of the dish.   Don't pack them in, leave some spaces for the batter to get around them all.  In a small bowl, mix flour, salt and sugar.  Set aside.  In a bigger bowl, mix eggs and milk.  Cut vanilla bean longways and scrape out the insides into the egg mixture.  Gradually stir the flour mix into the egg mixture.   Pour batter over cherries.   Bake at 350 until set and golden.  About 60 minutes. 

Clafouti is traditionally served at room temp.     It's great that way.    It was also great cold, right out of the fridge for breakfast.