Clafoutis is the first Larousse Gastronomique dessert I've prepared and a classic. Variations appear in many of the books in my shelves--Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook has a recipe that isn't too different from Larousse Gastronomique's, although it calls for the cherries to be soaked in kirsch. Matt Moran or Neil Perry or maybe both have recipes for clafoutis of pears or figs or quinces or something. I remember seeing a pineapple version at some point--Jacques Reymond's menu, maybe. Larousse Gastronomique acknowledges that clafoutis can involve more than just cheries but makes clear people from the region of Limousin are conservative in their tastes. Apparently they were very upset when some academy of whatever dared define the dessert as 'a sort of fruit flan' as opposed to 'a cake with black cherries.'
Now. Black cherries. It's summer here so of course cherries are in season. Cherries are expensive: today, Coles was selling them for $16 per kilogram and, to be honest, they didn't look spectacular. The recipe specifies black cherries but neither Coles nor the local green grocers specified what variety they were selling. I know very little about cherries--I can't remember ever buying fresh cherries before--so I couldn't tell whether they were black cherries by sight. Luckily, the canned foods section had reasonably priced 425 gram cans of pitted black cherries. I bought a handful of the fresh cherries to bring the weight of cherries up to 500 grams, which is what Larousse Gastronomique's recipe calls for. Traditionally, the cherries used in clafoutis are left unpitted as the pits are supposed to improve the flavour of the cake. In most Australian restaurants and pastry shops, though, I'd imagine they'd pit them for the same reason most places pinbone fish. The canned cherries came pre-pitted and I pitted the fresh ones.
As I said earlier, Bourdain soaks his cherries in kirsch before mixing them into the cake batter. Larousse Gastronomique just lets them sit in 50 grams of caster sugar for half a hour or so. At the end of this point I found that the cherries, which I'd drained before putting them in the bowl, had expelled a lot of syrup. I discarded this as the batter is very moist. The cherries are then moved into a shallow baking dish. You could just as easily pour them into ramekins or little pie tins to make individual portions.
The batter, which is poured on top of the cherries, is made from 125 grams of plain flour, a further 50 grams of caster sugar, 3 whole eggs (beaten), 300 mL milk and a pinch of salt. It's very similar to pancake batter, really, which is probably what led my pastry chef housemate to describe clafoutis as 'something of a pancake gone wrong.' The clafoutis is baked at 180 degres for 35-40 minutes.
It's a lot like a pancake in taste, too. Gone wrong? Well, not really. It's nice. It'd be really nice with icecream. Amazing? Perhaps not, but doubtlessly a crowd-pleaser that's quick and easy to prepare.
From memory, they work pretty well with blueberries and possibly raspberries, but then you don't have something as obvious as Kirsch to bump the flavour. And, too, no stones in the fruit to impart an extra level of flavour.
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