Clafoutis
Limousin Baked Cherry Batter Pudding
Whole cherries in a dish, a thin batter poured over, forty minutes in the oven. The batter sets round the fruit into something between a custard and a pancake. In the Limousin the stones are left in, on the grounds that they add flavour and stop the juice bleeding.
The Limousin recipe read uses 600 g of whole cherries, two eggs, 120 g of sugar, 100 g of flour and 330 ml of milk, baked in a buttered dish at 180°C for 40 minutes and sprinkled with sugar while warm. It remarks that the pudding is said to taste better with the stones left in.
Saveur's version blends six eggs with milk, flour and sugar and bakes it hotter, at about 220°C, with kirsch or Cognac in the batter.
Ingredients
Ingredients
- 25 g unsalted butter, for the dish
- 600 g ripe cherries, stalks removed
- 100 g plain flour
- 120 g caster sugar, plus 1 tbsp to finish
- A pinch of fine sea salt
- 2 large eggs
- 330 ml whole milk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Method
- Prepare Heat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan). Butter the dish generously and spread the cherries in it in a single layer.
- Make the batter Whisk the flour, sugar and salt in a bowl. Whisk in the eggs, then the milk a little at a time, then the vanilla, until smooth. It should be as thin as pouring cream.
- Bake Pour the batter over the cherries. Bake for 40 minutes, until puffed, golden at the edges and just set in the middle.
- Serve Sprinkle with the extra sugar while warm. Serve lukewarm; it sinks as it cools.
Food safety
If you leave the stones in, tell everyone at the table before they bite, and do not serve it to young children.
Stoned cherries leak juice into the batter and colour it. Whole ones stay neat.