Cherry season is finally here & the trees are bejewelled with these deliciously sweet stoned fruits. Aside from jam, one of my favourite thing’s to make with cherries is clafoutis. Pronounced as clah-foo-tee , this is a classic French dessert which is ridiculously easy to make (it’s easier to make than pronounce, my one week of French in comprehensive school really did me no favours). It’s a type of creamy baked custard that is cooked until it is just set enough to hold it’s shape & the fruit within it.
It’s name comes from the verb ‘clafir’, meaning ‘to fill’, so named as clafoutis is made by arranging the fruit in a dish before filling is with the sweetened, egg-rich batter. The traditional fruit of choice has always been black cherries, although these would always be left un-pitted as when heated, the cherry pits would actually infuse the batter with a subtle almond flavour.
I’m accident prone enough as it is without adding risk of choking to my desserts so I prefer to pit my cherries & add a splash of amaretto to the mix for that almondy delight. I’ve probably gone a little heavy on the cherries here in my sheer excitement for more summer fruits in my life, but is there even such a thing as too many cherries?
CHERRY CLAFOUTIS
(makes one 26cm pudding)
Ingredients:
- 2 tbsp butter
- 4 eggs
- 235ml milk
- 1 tbsp amaretto
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 100g caster sugar
- 100g plain flour
- 280g cherries, pitted & halved
- 1 tbsp icing sugar, to serve
Method:
- Begin by greasing the inside of a 26cm pie dish with butter
- Next, place the butter into a pan & set over a medium heat until melted
- Once melted continue to cook the butter, stirring it as you go for a further 5-9 minutes until the butter sizzles & foams before turning a golden brown colour (it will smell buttery & nutty & there will be some browned solids at the bottom of the pan, this is normal), set it aside to cool
- Once cooled, add the eggs, milk, amaretto, salt & sugar to the pan & give everything a stir together
- Finally, sift the flour into the pan to remove any lumps & mix until everything is well combined
- Now, tip the cherries into the prepared pie dish before pouring over the batter (or you can arrange them on top later)
- Bake at 180C for 45 minutes – 50 minutes, until puffy, golden & a knife inserted into the centre part of the clafoutis comes out cleanly (don’t worry if it looks a little bit like a Yorkshire pudding when you pull it out of the oven, it’ll calm down when it cools)
- Leave the cherry clafoutis to cool for 10-15 minutes before dusting with icing sugar & serving
