Now, yes, you can make clafoutis with other fruits. And yes, people will by and large call it a *fruit name* clafoutis. But the classic is with cherries.
So, finally set up. Finally have time. But too late. Cherries were already done for this year. No matter, I'll try with another fruit and hope to have time to attempt with cherries just before we leave next spring. It's a rare rainy weekend and not too hot, so a perfect day for summer baking.
Until! Ha ha!!!
Went to the farmer's market this morning and saw... CHERRIES!!! Ripe, plump, dark, juicy, deliciously fresh local cherries. An upside to living near the mountains is that the altitude delays some fruits. So while the sea level cherries have come and looong gone, the ones at 800m have just started!
Next: what is clafoutis? It's a dessert that basically consists of a bunch of cherries with flan batter poured over them and baked. You can make it with other fruits, apricots or raspberries being popular, but if you want to be technical about it, making it with stone or pome fruit - especially apples - makes it a flaugnarde.*
And yes, the cherries are often left whole so you do need to pay attention when eating. While the fact that is makes prep much faster is a perk I doubt anyone would deny, the idea is that the stones release just a bit of amygdalin - that wonderful bitter almond flavour - into the dish, giving the clafoutis more depth and complexity. People who are nervous can find recipes using pitted cherries and an optional dash of almond extract.
I used a recipe from Marmiton, which is a lot like a french equivalent to AllRecipes.
Final verdict? Easy and quick to make. Forgiving recipe. Very tasty. Waaaay better than the premade ones. That being said, I'm the kind of person who doesn't even like dealing with seeds in a watermelon wedge so I really didn't enjoy picking around the stones.
It was also much better warm than cold as some butter separated out and pooled in the wells made by the cherries. Not a big deal warm, but once chilled, it meant lots of little bits of solid butter. Not pleasant. This could be because of the recipe, though.
I will definitely make a clafoutis again, but I'd try another recipe and remove the pits, complexity and ease of prep be darned. If I ever hit on a five-star recipe, I will share it here.
*I did see one recipe with apples calling it a "clafoutis tatin" which is a pretty clever description.
