Sunday, June 17, 2007

clafouti

Ahh summer. Warm, smoky air, mosquitos, cold beer, and big bushels of plump, juicy cherries on sale for under $2 a pound.



Of all the things one could do to those cheap, delicious cherries, one of the simplest and most delicious things to do is to make the traditional French peasant dessert clafouti.



Califouti means "pudding cake" (I am told), and while it can be made with basically any non-citrus fruit, cherries are the most common. You can try plums, pears, peaches, banana... even mangoes. This is delicious on its own, as a dessert or breakfast, and is especially wonderful with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Califouti for 2

1 1/4 cups milk (I use 1 cup half and half, 1/4 cup milk)
2/3 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 Tablespoon vanilla, or seeds from one vanilla bean
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup flour
2 cups cherries, pitted
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1 tablespoon powdered or superfine sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Butter two ramekins. I use two 4 x 2 ramekins about 1 inch deep, but you can use one large, shallow ramekin if you like. Butter these liberally and set aside.

Blend the milk, sugar, eggs, vanilla, salt and flour in a large bowl. An ex boyfriend of mine used to combine this all in a blender, but since this is a peasant food, I kind of think it's more appropriate to just whisk the crap out of it by hand. Combine it well (look out for lumps of flour!) and pour a thin layer into each ramekin.



Bake the thin base layer for about 5 minutes, or until firm. Take out of the oven and make sure the ramekin is cool enough to work with.

Arrange the cherries over the base layer of cake in some sort of attractive manner. Make sure you don't pack them in too much - you want some space for the "pudding" to nestle in between the fruit. Don't go overboard though, because once you pour the batter in, your lovely design will get all jostled.



Pour the remaining batter into each ramekin, filling to just below the lip of each dish. Do not be upset when your cherry pattern gets all skewed! These will rise slightly while baking, but will shrink a little once they're out of the oven. Just don't fill the ramekins all the way to the top and you should be fine. Sprinkle a little of the lemon zest on top.



Bake at 350 for about 30-45 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Sprinkle with the powdered sugar and allow these to sit for about 5 minutes. Serve warm.


2 comments:

mikeh said...

nice work!! keep em coming.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this as just linked to my blog as we went to a restaurant last night and wondered what we were eating. http://foodpassions.co.uk/2008/11/29/the-mulberry-chiddingfold/