Serves:4-6
Approx cost: €3
Approx calories (per slice if cut into 6 slices): ~180
Approx preparation and cooking time: 50 mins
Clafoutis are everywhere around where I live. Every bakery and the “fake bakeries” (as in, the ones which have their bread delivered, instead of baking on-site) are selling slices of clafoutis and believe me when I say that a bad clafoutis is just terrible. At its best it should be fat with plump, juicy fruit, warm with a good eggy taste in the middle, and a slightly firmer base to prevent the awesomeness within from leaking out. At its worst it’s cold, rubbery, dry and downright disgusting. A lot of recipes online advise against… no… strongly discourage pitting the cherries beforehand, but seriously – I want to be able to cut a slice of this stuff hot, smother it with cream and sugar and wade in – pure indulgence. You can’t do that if you have to worry about breaking your teeth on cherry pits, as well as hardly being suitable for smaller children.
I’ve factored in the approximate cost of cherries at the moment into the recipe here, but if you have access to a cherry tree this recipe can be thrown together for a fraction of the price. If you’re serving this as an adults only dish I like to also replace a couple of tablespoons of the milk with Kirsch. Give it a try and let me know what you think!
Ingredients
– ~340g fresh Cherries
– 300 ml Milk
– 3 Eggs
– 50g Caster Sugar
– 60g Plain Flour
– 1 tsp Baking Powder
– 2-3 tsps Vanilla Sugar
– 2 tsps Butter
– Icing Sugar & Whipped Cream to serve
Instructions
- Start off by preheating the oven to ~180 degrees Celsius, and then crack the eggs into a mixing bowl. Add in the sugar and the vanilla sugar and whisk or beat together for a minute or so until well mixed.
- Add in the flour and the baking powder and again, whisk or beat well, before finally adding in the milk and whisking to form the batter. The batter will appear to be very liquid – don’t worry, this is perfectly fine.
- Next, wash the cherries and then take a medium-sized, square, shallow oven-safe dish, around 30 cm x 22 cm for example. Rub the 2 tsps of butter all over the base and sides of this dish and then remove the pits from the cherries. You can either use a knife to cut each carefully in half, but I find that if they’re nice and ripe, it’s easiest just to very gently squeeze them apart by applying pressure in the groove where the stalk goes. The pit should pop out relatively easily and you can place the cherries in the dish. A word of warning though – if they’re juicy, juice can, and will, squirt everywhere, so make sure you stash any whites or expensive linen away before doing this! Arrange the pitted cherries evenly over the base of the pan.
- Take the bowl of batter and carefully pour it over the cherries. You should have enough to almost cover them.
- Carefully transfer to the oven and cook for about 35 minutes. It should puff up nicely around the edges. After the time has elapsed it may still seem a bit “wobbly” in the centre. This is also normal – it’s not supposed to be completely solid, but if you are worried it’s too wobbly, you can keep it in the oven for another 5 minutes or so, or turn the oven off and keep it in there for 10 or 15 minutes maybe. Slice the clafoutis while it’s still hot and serve out onto plates. Dust liberally with icing sugar and serve with a good dollop of whipped cream and enjoy! (Also makes a great snack cold the next day, or a breakfast treat!)
I love these and you just don't see them as much in America. Beautiful recipe. Those cherries are just gorgeous.
Thanks Greg – super juicy! I still have cherry juice stains on my counter-top! 😀
I have never heard of clafoutis before. This is why I love food blogs…there's so much out there I've never heard of or eaten. And this looks like something I must eat! It seems very similar to a kuchen in preparation, so I think I can even probably handle it. 😉 And I just want to eat that cream off the top right now. Yum!
Now it's my turn to wonder… "kuchen"? I know it's German for "cake", but I didn't know there was a specific dish called this. Care to enlighten me? Sounds great if it's anything like clafoutis!
I bet it is German in heritage…Kuchen is popular in North and South Dakota. It's basically a cake with fruit – and very similar in prep to this dish. We made one a while back: http://ourfamilyfoodadventures.com/2011/04/18/hai… The kids ate it for breakfast all week! Yum!
Aah, now I know! I remember seeing it when you posted it. Meant to comment, was probably too busy drooling over how delicious it looked! Something to try for sure – thanks a lot 🙂
Mmmm….good clafoutis is hard to beat and this one looks delish! I agree, a nice warm ooey gooey center is what we're after =) Did you use black cherries for this one? Looks great! Thanks Charles.
I did use black cherries – it was hard for me to stop from eating them. My favourite past-time is getting a big bowl of cherries, and sitting in front of the TV with a good movie, and through the course of the evening I'll slice the cherries in half with my teeth, remove the pit, and then transfer the cherries to a bowl. Once I have a huge pile ready I'll stuff them all into my mouth, because after all – what's better than just one fresh cherry, then about 20 of them all at the same time?! 😀
Never tried making clafoutis before, but yours looks fantastic. The whipped cream adds a nice touch. Looks like something I'll have to make soon!
You should definitely try it – I think it would go really well with a good scoop of decent ice-cream too. I might try and make another one soon with peaches or rhubarb or something as well – that should be super yummy!
I was just going to make a berry clafoutis and I'm so glad I read your post first as I can now make sure mine tastes as you so perfectly described a "good" clafoutis to be! I will definitely make not of that and hopefully soon you will see my post, with kudos to you!!
Thanks Linda – which berries will you use? I wish I was there to try it myself, it sounds delicious! Looking forward to seeing your post!
I plan on using blueberries and strawberries! I love the contrasting colors!
Lovely! I agree – the colours are really beautiful. Hope you enjoy it and have a great day 🙂
……..I'd be concerned that making such a dish will result in very little cherries due to my munching and nomming before they make it into the baking dish………hence I've decided when making this dish, doubling the amount of cherries would be most suitable thing to do 🙂
Haha, actually I have (had) more cherries at home and was planning on doing something similar again, but I'm weak to their delicious sweetness. Every time I walk past the kitchen I grab a pile and eat them all!