Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Cherry Clafouti


Cherry Clafouti
Originally uploaded by TagDragon

Clafouti is a traditional French dessert made with cherries. But, it’s a little difficult to find a cherry version. Everyone does some other type of fruit. So, I made this cherry version. Clafouti is not a dessert I had growing up. It was the odd name that drew my attention to it. Now, I like the rusticness and comfort of it. It is something I could see having on the farm if we ate rustic French peasant desserts.

Ingredients
1 tablespoon unsalted Butter
1 tablespoon Sugar
1/3 cup Sugar
3 extra-large eggs – room temperature
6 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose Flour
1 ½ cups Heavy Cream
2 teaspoons Pure Vanilla Extract
1 teaspoon grated Lemon zest
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons Cognac
2 cups pitted Cherries
Confectioners’ Sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Butter 10 x 1 ½ - inch round baking dish or equivalent size oval baking dish, sprinkle dish with 1 tablespoon of granulated sugar.

Beat eggs and 1/3 cup of granulated sugar in bowl of an electric mixed with the paddle attachment until light and fluffy. On low speed mix in the flour, heavy cream, vanilla extract, lemon zest, salt and cognac. Set aside for 10 minutes.

Pit 2 cups of cherries. Evenly place cherries in baking dish. Pour batter over cherries and bake until the top is golden brown and the custard is set, 35 to 40 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature, dusted with confectioners’ sugar.

Servers 8

The 10 minutes while the batter sits is a good time to pit the cherries. You have the time. You can either pit cherries or do a little kitchen cleaning? Your Choice. Also, cherries can be very messing in the pitting process.
Do not over cook. It should be somewhere between custard and a very moist cake a little closer to custard. Over cook and it will be the wrong texture, closer to rubber.

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