Clafoutis: the French dessert of cherries baked in a thin batter
Clafoutis is one of the most forgiving desserts in French cooking: fruit covered in a thin egg batter, put in the oven, done. There is no pastry to roll, no custard to temper and nothing that can curdle. The result sits somewhere between a custard and a pancake: the edges rise and colour while the centre stays moist and creamy. The one rule worth remembering: the batter should be as thin as single cream, not like pancake batter.
Your own work in that: 15 min.
- Fruit and batter 15 min
- Resting the batter 10 min
- Baking 35 min
- Cooling 10 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneArrange the fruit in the dish
Heat the oven to 180 °C. Butter a 26 cm dish (ceramic or cast iron) and sprinkle it with a tablespoon of sugar. Arrange the cherries in a single layer, close together, and sprinkle over the second tablespoon of sugar. Ceramic and cast iron hold heat well, so the edges rise and brown nicely.
Ingredients: 500 g cherries · 2 tbsp sugar · 20 g butter
TipIn the traditional Limousin version the cherries are left <b>unpitted</b> — by tradition the stones add a faint almond note. If you do this, warn your guests; pitted cherries are easier to eat and the difference in flavour is subtle.
A single layer, close together, sugaredWhisk a thin batter
In a jug whisk the eggs with both sugars, then add the flour and salt and whisk smooth. Finally pour in the milk and cream. The batter should be thin, like single cream — falling from the whisk in a stream, not in sheets.
Ingredients: 4 pcs eggs · 300 ml milk · 100 ml whipping cream (30%) · 90 g plain flour · 80 g sugar · 1 tbsp vanilla sugar · 1 pinch salt
TipThis is the one thing that can be got wrong here. A thick batter gives a dessert like a rubbery pancake instead of a delicate, creamy interior.
As thin as single creamRest the batter ten minutes
Leave the batter 10 minutes. The flour hydrates and the gluten tightened by whisking relaxes — without this a clafoutis comes out slightly rubbery. Meanwhile the oven comes up to temperature.
Pour the batter over the fruit
Pour the batter over the cherries slowly, from the centre, so the fruit is not pushed to the sides. The batter should roughly cover the fruit — some cherries poke through, some disappear, and that is fine. Do not fill higher than about 1 cm below the rim, as it rises a lot in the oven.
Slowly from the centre; cherries half submergedBake thirty-five minutes
Bake 35 minutes at 180 °C. The edges should rise, puff and turn golden while the centre is set but still faintly wobbling. A knife inserted beside the fruit should come out clean.
Puffed edges, a centre that still wobblesRest and serve warm
Take it out and leave 10 minutes — the clafoutis sinks, which is normal, exactly as a soufflé does. Dust with icing sugar and serve warm, straight from the dish. Cold it is noticeably worse.
Ingredients: 2 tbsp icing sugar
It sinks within minutes, and that is normal
Before you start
Other fruit
Plums, apricots, pears, blueberries, raspberries. Purists keep the name clafoutis for the cherry version and call the others flaugnarde. Watery fruit such as strawberries works least well.
With alcohol
Two tablespoons of kirsch (cherry eau de vie) or rum in the batter. It is the classic addition and noticeably deepens the fruit flavour, though obviously left out in a version for children.
Why it sinks
The batter is lifted by steam from the milk and eggs, not by a raising agent. Out of the oven that steam condenses and the dessert settles — not a fault but a property of this kind of bake.
How long it keeps
Two days in the fridge, but reheat before serving: 10 minutes at 160 °C. Straight from the fridge it is dense and loses all the creaminess that is its best quality.
