Clafoutis

CLAFOUTIS

Clafoutis is a traditional French dessert, usually dusted with powdered sugar.  In our family, we serve this for brunch on special occasions, and we don’t bother with the powdered sugar. The original recipe uses un-pitted cherries, and the pits depart an almond flavor. In Mollie Katzen’s cookbook Still Life With Menu, from which this recipe is adapted, she uses almond extract to recreated that flavor. We generally use vanilla extract instead, and any fresh fruit we have around. Bananas work well in a pinch, as do apples and pears. In season, plums and cherries are great. Above, we used some blueberries and raspberries, out of season, from our food coop. We’ve also used New Jersey cranberries—if you try those, be sure to add an extra half-cup of sugar.

The recipe below is very easy: all you need is a blender and an oven. Prep time, about 15 minutes, with another 40-45 minutes to bake.

Ingredients:

1 1/3 cup of milk (any kind, including almond or soy milk)
1 1/3 cup of flour (works best with white, unbleached or bleached)
4 eggs
2 tbs sugar
1 tbs vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
approximately 1 1/2 cups of fruit: fresh, frozen, or even canned, drained fruit.
3 tbs butter

Preheat oven to 375 F. Place butter in 9″ cake pan, 10″ pie pan, or equivalent, and allow butter to melt inside pan in oven while preparing rest of ingredients.

Place everything above except fruit into a blender, liquid ingredients first. Blend until frothy. Remove pan with melted butter from oven. Place fruit in pan and pour blended batter over top. Bake 40 minutes  (if the fruit is frozen it will take a bit longer) or until puffed and brown. Serve immediately—it begins to deflate as soon as it leaves the oven.