Cherry Clafoutis

Cherries are in season and now is the best time to buy more of them as they are fragrant, sweet and juicy; and there will be discounts and offers at supermarkets for these stone fruits. With the cherries I bought, I made a Cherry Clafoutis.

Cherry Clafoutis is a french dessert from the Limousin region in central France. Traditionally, unpitted cherries are used for this dessert so that their kernels could release their delicate almond flavour as they baked. The fruits are topped with a pancake-like batter, baked until the batter has set with nicely browned and slightly puffed edges, then served warm with a coat of confectioners sugar dusted on top. It has a custard-like texture and is best eaten on the day.

Today, this dessert is made with pitted cherries. The pitted cherries are macerated in sugar and cognac or kirsch for about 1-2 hours before placing them in the baking dish. For the batter, you can either use a blender to blitz the batter ingredients or whisk the wet and dry ingredients in a bowl by hand. The recipe also requires you to butter and coat the insides of the baking dish with sugar. Do not omit this step as the sugar on the sides will help the batter rise up the dish.

Preparing the baking dish by buttering and coating the insides of the dish with sugar

Macerating the cherries in sugar and cognac/kirsch

Macerated cherries in the buttered and sugared baking dish

Preparing the dry ingredients : sifted flour; sugar and salt

Gathering my wet ingredients

Add wet and dry ingredients and whisk batter by hand till smooth

Pour batter over the macerated cherries in the prepared baking dish

The puffed up clafoutis just out of the oven

The clafoutis will deflate a little after it has cooled down

It's a really easy dessert to make. The only difficult part was I had to control my urge to start eating it when it's out of the oven after baking for 30 minutes. Do allow the dessert a good 30 minutes to cool down before eating it. It's all puffed up when out of the oven but will deflate once it has cooled down. You can serve with confectioners sugar dusted on it, or with a dollop of yogurt, ice-cream or whipped cream. I omitted all these and just have it on its own.

Though cherries are used traditionally, clafoutis can also be made with other fruits like blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, apples, plums, peaches, pears or cranberries. The amount of sugar used will have to be adjusted depending on the sweetness of the fruits used.

Voila!!

Cherry Clafoutis

mostly adapted from Life section of The Sunday Times
makes a clafoutis in a 9" round baking dish

Ingredients:

For the Macerated Cherries
300g fresh cherries, pitted

2 tbspn sugar
2-3 tbspn cognac or kirsch

For the Baking Dish
15g unsalted butter
2 tbspn sugar

For the Batter
75g plain flour
3 tbspn sugar
Pinch of salt
20g unsalted butter, melted
250ml milk
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

For Decoration (I omitted)
Confectioners sugar (for dusting)
or
Scoop of ice-cream; or yogurt; or whipped cream

Method:
1. Macerate the pitted cherries with sugar and cognac/kirsch for at least 1-2 hours.

2. Butter baking dish and coat the insides of the dish with sugar. Set aside.

3. Preheat oven to 180C.

4. Sieve plain flour. Whisk in sugar and salt. Set aside.

5. Melt butter. In a mixing bowl, add the melted butter to the milk and eggs. Beat well.

6. Add in the dry flour mixture to the wet ingredients and whisk will smooth.
Note: Alternatively, place all batter ingredients in a blender and blitz till smooth.

7. Spoon the macerated cherries and juices into the prepared baking dish.

8. Pour the batter over and bake in preheated oven at 180C for 30 minutes or until the sides of the clafoutis is browned and the sides are puffed up.

9. Remove from oven and let cool for 30 minutes. The clafoutis will deflate a little after it has cooled down.

10. Serve warm, with a dusting of confectioners sugar; or a scoop of yogurt; or ice-cream; or whipped cream.



This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs Up organised by Bake for Happy Kids and My Little Favourite DIY, and hosted by Diana from the Domestic Goddess Wannabe

This post is also linked to the event, Cook-Your-Books #15 organised bu Joyce from Kitchen Flavours.

Do link back to LY's Kitchen Ventures if you have used any information published in this blog.