It’s good to have a failproof recipe in your back pocket, especially when life is full of such glorious (and unpredictable) friends who might stop by at any moment. Such is the case with this clafoutis. The other day a few friends called to say they wanted to swing by for an evening smile on their way home from a business dinner and I thought, “Well, I wouldn’t be much of a host if the door opened to a scent-less house, would I?”
Enter the clafoutis. Darlings, clafoutis is the dessert you can make when you think you have nothing in your pantry. It’s really nothing more than fancy pancake batter poured over fruit and baked until tender and quivering. Do you have a few eggs on hand? A bit of sugar? Some flour? Done. Clafoutis!
I would love to say that I made this with seasonal fruit from my local market, but the truth is that once I was startled into preparing for after-dinner guests I simply didn’t have time to fetch some gems of the Summer. Instead, I foraged in my freezer for a few bags of languishing frozen fruit, hidden away in the dead of winter when I used half of each bag for some inane recipe testing. But that is the beauty of clafoutis- it will envelop any fruit you have on hand and turn out a dish fit for entertaining.
Make it however you like, with cream, whole milk, half and half, or coconut milk (as I do). Clafoutis is ultimately forgiving of your substitutes and shortcomings. It is, I might say, an ideal dessert. Unconditionally lovely.
Clafoutis!
Party
- 1 or 2 cups fresh or frozen fruit (I used blueberries and raspberries)
- 1 tablespoon Coconut Oil
- 2 Eggs
- 1 cup Coconut Milk
- ½ cup Sugar
- ⅓ cup Brown Rice Flour
- ½ teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- ½ teaspoon Almond Extract
- ½ teaspoon Salt
- 2 tablespoons Powdered Sugar
Business
- Smear the coconut oil around a 9-inch pie dish (or any baking dish really, clafoutis is not particular about its shape).
- Put the fruit in the baking dish and preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Slide the baking dish of fruit into the oven while it is preheating to relax the fruit. Let it warm up and juice itself while you beat the batter.
- In a medium mixing bowl, add all remaining ingredients. Take a whisk and whip that batter into a tizzy. Make sure you scrape the sides of your mixing bowl, some flour will likely cling in an effort to evade the wrath of your whisk.
- Remove the baking dish from the oven (with an oven mitt, mind you, this is hot). Pour the batter over the warmed fruit.
- Put the pie dish back into the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until just set in the middle. You’ll know it’s ready when you give the dish a tap and it responds with a jovial jiggle right in the center.
- Remove the clafoutis and dust it with powdered sugar. Spoon it into bowls and devour the joy. It’s equally wonderful hot and cold, so eat some immediately and then stick it in the fridge to nibble on throughout the rest of your night.