Oh how I love a cherry clafouti. If someone, for inexplicable reasons, told me I could only have one dessert for the rest of my life (What? It could happen), this is what I’d choose. I always pick a fruity dessert over a chocolately one, anyway, and this is fruit-dessert perfection. First of all, it’s French, and everything French is fantastic, as everyone knows.
Secondly, it’s simple. Yeah, there are a few steps involved, but there are no separating of eggs, or creaming butter and sugar until it’s double in volume, or water baths. Lastly, it’s got a rustic gorgeousness that makes you want to dress for the occasion, say in a simple cotton frock made from a tiny floral print and straw hat, which you were wearing when you went to harvest lavender in your garden earlier today.
A clafouti is also an custardy dessert, which also makes me swoon. It’s like a huge baked pancake studded with fruit. And the mix of textures – the eggy part and the cherries that you can bite clear into without being on guard for the pits – is probably my most favorite part. It’s more of a teatime snack than an after-dinner dessert, and if you don’t save some for breakfast, you will missing out on a real treat.
Cherries grow in New York State, where I not only bought them but picked them myself, but I can’t find locally grown cherries here. Which usually means cherries have been too expensive. But have you noticed how cheap they are this year? I’ve been buying them at Whole Foods (of all places) for $1.99 a pound! I should be pitting and freezing like they’re going out of style. Maybe I’ll get on that after I get back from Chicago. If you can buy cherries that cheap where you are, make this today.
Cherry Clafouti (adapted from Chuck Williams’ “Simple French Cooking”)
Serves 4
1 lb. fresh dark sweet cherries
1 cup milk
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup sifted cake (soft wheat) flour
4 eggs at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pure almond extract or 1 tablespoon kirsch
Confectioner’s sugar for dusting
Position a rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Butter a 1 1/2-quart baking dish. A 10-inch ceramic pie plate works well.
Using a cherry pitter, pit the cherries. The cherry juice will splatter and make a mess, so don’t pit without an apron. Arrange the cherries in a single layer in the prepared dish.
In a saucepan over medium-low heat, combine the milk and cream and heat until small bubbles appear along the edges of the pan. Do not boil. Remove from heat and, using a whisk, vigorously whisk in the flour a little at a time until well-blended and no lumps remain. Set aside.
In a bowl combine the eggs, sugar and salt and, using the whisk, beat until light and creamy. Add the milk mixture and the almond extract or kirsch and whisk until blended and smooth.
Pour over the cherries. Place the baking dish on a baking sheet and place in the oven. Bake 45 to 55 minutes until browned and puffy yet still soft in the center. A sharp-edged knife stuck in the center will come out almost clean. Transfer to a rack to cool.
Dust the top generously with confectioner’s sugar. Using a large serving spoon, eat the clafouti directly from the baking dish in blissful silence while your family sleeps upstairs, only stopping to save some clafouti for breakfast place two or three spoonfuls on each dessert plate. Dust with more confectioner’s sugar.
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