Clafoutis - a Traditional French Cherry Recipe.

Fresh cherries come into the shops in late spring and you can use them for this dish. However I like to make this dish all year round so I often use jars of pitted black cherries.

Cherry Bowl

Simon Steele

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Clafoutis recipe

Ingredients

Use fresh unpitted cherries if in season, other wise use well drained bottled or canned cherries.

• 500 grams cherries
• 3 eggs
• 1 Tablespoon of butter
• 1/4 cup caster sugar
• 1/2 cup Self Raising flour
• 1 cup of milk
• 1/2 cup cream
• 1 tablespoon of Kirsch or cherry brandy
• Extra cream for serving

Method

• Preheat your oven to 190 degrees.
• Butter a shallow heat proof serving dish, and spread the cherries evenly over the base
• Beat the eggs lightly. Add the caster sugar and the flour and stir gently. Gradually stir in the the milk, cream and brandy to make a smooth batter.
• Pour batter over the cherries.
• Bake for 25 minutes until batter has risen and the top is just starting to brown.
• Serve warm with the extra cream.

Wine Suggestion

This dessert will go well with a rich full flavoured sweet or semi sweet wine. Use a late picked Pinot gris, or perhaps a Gewurztraminer.

Variation
In late summer after the cherries are all gone you could use blackberries or raspberries.

This recipe is adapted from one provided by Maggie Beer in her wonderful ‘Cook and the Chef’ TV show. Maggie’s recipe used prunes and candied grapefruit, but I rather like the the combination of marmalade and the apricots. You can flavour your custard with a vanilla bean, but I usually don’t bother, but I like to serve my pudding with a good vanilla ice cream.

Panettone is a rich festive bread made from flour, yeast, butter, eggs, dried raisins and candied lemon and orange peel. It originates from Northern Italy, particularly around Milan. It is available in supermarkets and Italian delicatessens, especially in the months leading up to Christmas. If you can’t find some and haven’t got time to make your own, then you could use raisin bread.

Ingredients

60 g melted butter
2 Tablespoons of good orange marmalade
4 x 1 cm thick slices Panettone, or raisin bread
100 g dried apricots, chopped
300 ml milk
300 ml cream
4 eggs
125 g castor sugar – add more if you’re not using a sweet bread

Method

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Remove the crusts from the panettone, butter it and then grill it on both sides in a griddle pan until golden. Butter a 22 cm ovenproof dish and arrange the slices of panettone over the base. Spread with marmalade. And sprinkle with the apricots. You might do a couple of layers of panettone or overlap them to fit in the pan.

Bring the milk and cream to a simmer in a saucepan. In a separate larger bowl mix the eggs and castor sugar. Stir the hot milk and cream into the egg mixture, and then pour this carefully over the bread. Stand the dish in a water bath, making sure the hot water is ¾ of the way up the sides. Bake for about 25-30 minutes until set; allow to cool a little before serving so that the custard can finish setting.

Alternatively, you could cook without a water bath at 160 C for 45 minutes, after firstly letting the pudding mixture stand for ten minutes so the custard can set.

Serve with cream or good vanilla ice cream.

Wine Suggestion: This dish would go well any dessert wine, but I think it is ideally suited to chilled dry Orange Muscat.