Cherry & Yogurt Clafoutis

A quick note before we talk clafoutis:  About last week's entry in Paper Chef #31 – sweet merciful crap, I won!! 

Still in a bit of shock about the whole thing, but there’s a big smile on my face, as every dish looked great.  After making, tasting and writing my entry up, I felt pretty good, but then after seeing the competition, I would have bet on someone else.  Hank did a fantastic write up of all the entries (and fish steak seemed to be a truly inspiring choice) and I had some similar thoughts – sauerkraut strudel?  How could you turn that down?  Magnus’ dish looked incredible and I was immediately struck by the composition of it.  But of all of them, if I had the opportunity to try just one, I probably would have sunk my fork into Natashya’s Moroccan Salmon dish – the flavors looked fantastic.  From start to finish, this was a ton of fun, can’t wait to have another go at it, and especially looking forward to judging (a little nervous too) and picking an ingredient for next month’s round!

…

I had previously threatened a sour cherry dish, but when we got our veggies this week, there were no sour cherries – just 4 lbs of sweet ones.   A let down maybe, but not a big enough deterrent to completely knock me off the target of a cherry-related dessert.

Clafoutis is a great word.  Its appearance takes enjoyment in defying pronunciation – at least for me.  The spellchecker wants nothing to do with it.    But the spellchecker has never tried one, otherwise, I believe, it would find nothing to complain about.

Clafoutis is a classic French custardy dessert.  So custardy, in fact, that when Julia Child translates it in Mastering the Art… she calls it “flan".  To me, it’s basically a pancake batter with fruit that bakes up thick and well…custardy.  Depending on how long you bake it, you can end up with a consistency somwhere along the custardy to cakey continuum.  This came out with a solid, dense custard feel to it, and that seemed perfect to me.

The big change I’ve made from standard clafoutis batters is the substitution of vanilla yogurt for some of the milk/cream.  It’s a favorite key ingredient in our standard pancake recipe, so I figured it would be right at home here.  It lent a great tangy flavor and the vanilla and cherries were made for each other.  It’s your simple, beautiful fruit dessert.  The only thing easier would be eating the fruit straight, and there’s nothing wrong with that either.

Cherry & Yogurt Clafoutis

2-3 C of pitted black cherries, depending on your desired ratio of cake:fruit
3 eggs
3/4 C milk
1/2 C whole milk vanilla yogurt
2/3 C flour
1/2 C sugar
Salt, a big pinch

- Preheat oven to 375

- Butter a 10 inch casserole pan, pie pan, or oven safe skillet.  Scatter cherries along the bottom.

- Beat eggs, milk and yogurt together

- Mix flour, sugar and salt and whisk into egg mixture

- Pour over cherries, shake pan to distribute and bake for 40-50 minutes (maybe longer depending on depth), at least until toothpick in center comes out clean.

Comments

[Mel H]

Congrats!!!

[caren]

so what IS the pronunciation???

[andrew]

cla-FOO-tee, i believe :)

[Murray]

Congratulations on winning the competition!

[kate]

nice work andrew! I guess I might actually try to make it. Of course my cooking skills leave a bit to be desired so far.

I have a suggestion for one of your ingredients (of course, they have to be a mystery), but you should go with olives. I was stopping in at the Scottish Cow so that I could request some recipe suggestions for olives... please?

[jessica]

O.k., now I need to make this...I found some yogurt that is made locally and I am in love. It is so yummy and much better than the yogurt I had been buying. The only problem would be securing that many cherries to make this dessert, since they get eaten as soon as I bring them home. As for freezer jam recipes, I buy liquid certo packages and the recipe is right there, I think it is something like 4 cups of sugar, two cups of berries and 2 tbs of lemon juice and the certo, but don't quote me. It was ridiculously easy to make...and we've already gone through 4 jars!!

[Duff]

Well done, Andrew!

[Amanda]

Congratulations on your win! I had never heard of Paper Chef, either. I will definitely be checking it out now, but . . . it makes me sad that I can't get so many of the ingredients that I love while I am in China.

[LyB]

I really have to make a clafoutis, it sounds so easy and delicious. Plus I love cherries so yours is incredibly tempting. Oh, and congrats on Paper Chef! :)

[andrew]

Thanks everyone for comments! More than that, thanks for coming back and reading!

Kate...thinking about/researching about recipes that feature olives...good idea for a future post...

[Amber]

Oh, I'm getting behind on my internet things... Belated congratulations on your win!

And custard anything = heaven. :)

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Merci pour répondre à vos besoins faits! Je savais que les petits sur ce volet avant, Perfect souhaite en fonction de vos besoins et le bonheur à travers le quotidien.C'est parfait que les gens puissent prendre les prêts d'ailleurs, cela ouvre des possibilités entièrement nouvelles.

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yummm makes me wanna crave some more!!!