Clafoutis
Clafoutis is not particularly Swiss (it comes from our French neighbours), but it is a wonderful way to use Switzerland’s finest produce. Cherries from Zug and Basel, apricots from Valais, and all the other fruits that I foolishly buy in bulk and then can’t eat fast enough. There is only so much room in the freezer.
Whenever I make Clafoutis, my mother sighs with delight, and Sam sighs and says, “it would be so much better bound in pastry…” Swiss to his toes, he must preach the superiority of his beloved Wähe.
But not only is Clafoutis the lazy girl’s Wähe (no rolling out dough!), it is delicious and adaptable too. Our household favourite is apricot, but cherry and plum are also great variants.
The recipe is my mum’s, which she got out of an old quilting magazine decades ago, and which has been tinkered exactly to her liking. As she tells me every time, it’s probably her favourite dinner.
3 eggs
40 g sugar
1 tbsp vanilla
pinch salt
250 ml milk (or a mix of cream and milk)
50 g flour
1 tsp baking powder
around 500 g fruit
30 g melted butter
Preheat oven to 180 C / 350 F / gas mark 4.
In a large measuring cup, whisk together the eggs, sugar, vanilla and salt. Whisk in the milk, flour and baking powder, and mix well. (Alternatively, do this in a blender, food processor, or with an immersion blender). Set aside to rest while you prepare the fruit.
Butter a large casserole dish.
Prepare your fruit—wash, cut, pit—and place it, cut side up, in the buttered casserole dish.
Whisk the melted butter into the batter, then pour this over the fruit.
Bake for about 35-40 minutes, or until the top is nicely browned and there is still a bit of a wiggle in the custard.
Fruit quantity: I typically use between 500 and 700 g of fruit (before pitting). Basically as much fruit as I can squeeze into my casserole dish.
You can use all milk, or half milk, half cream (preferred for a nice custardy taste).
In my house we love Clafoutis and typically eat it for our evening meal. I have to make a double recipe to feed three adults and a toddler (and sometimes this isn’t even enough), and the version above serves two as a meal or maybe four as dessert.
This version is not too sweet. If you want it sweeter (say, you are serving it as a dessert), or you have very sour fruit, add a tbsp more sugar to the batter, or dust with icing sugar once it is out of the oven.
You can also top it with slivered, toasted almonds.
According to Wikipedia, in some parts of France they leave the pits in the cherries in this dish (to add flavour), but I prefer them pitted.
Sam prefers…
Aprikosenwähe
