Actually, one of the recipes I read spelled it "Clafouti(s)."

As Stevez intimated, this is America, jack, you're either with us, or against us.

Sorry, Gypsy Boy, the pedant in you is wrong. It's commonly spelled both clafouti and clafoutis, perhaps the former is the rural dialect of the area (Limousin) it comes from, or simply a regional variation of some other kind. You know, like soda and pop.

Mike G wrote:Sorry, Gypsy Boy, the pedant in you is wrong. It's commonly spelled both clafouti and clafoutis...

Um, no, not really. Clafouti may be common usage in the U.S. and at LTH, but not in France. It's clafoutis in every French (as in published there) cookbook I've got as well as in Larousse, Mme. Saint-Ange, and Bocuse as well as in the French dictionary (as in published in France by French companies).

But hey. Y'all want to spell it clafouti, pretend I never posted.

(But do look at Kimball's recipe.)

http://www.aufeminin.com/m/cuisine/rece ... fouti.html
http://www.gourmandines.fr/recette-clafouti-cerises.php
http://www.latoquee.floe.info/article.p ... rticle=300
http://eggsandmouillettes.blogspot.com/ ... aches.html
http://alatabledel.canalblog.com/archiv ... 22928.html
http://lesnectarsdemaya.canalblog.com/a ... 37604.html
http://ptibouchon.canalblog.com/archive ... 23501.html
http://fonduedecuisine.canalblog.com/ar ... 01888.html

Vous dites clafoutis et je dis clafouti...

...let's call the whole thing off!

I'd greatly appreciate assistance from the bakers among us.

RAB and I have been on a bit of a clafouti-eating tear this summer. RAB enjoyed the clafoutis we had at Lula Cafe and Sweets & Savories. Both were more cakey than custardy.

I successfully made Julia Child's easy cherry clafouti recipe (which Mike G links to and Aschie30 executes earlier in the thread). I thought the clafouti was delicious, but would like to make RAB happy by making a more cakey, less custardy clafouti (which perhaps isn't a clafouti at all).

Does anyone have a recipe that would work? Alternatively, can I adjust the Julia Child recipe, perhaps by adding more flour, to achieve the desired result?

Thanks in advance,
Ronna

I made a clafouti for the Food Desert thread, IDK if it's what you're looking for, but there it is. They should be like a yorkshire pudding or popovers, I'm not sure where that fits in your description. There's also another clafouti-ish thing native to Brittany called a farthat uses prunes instead of cherries, maybe that's what you're looking for.

Had clafouti at Lula Cafe last Sunday, served in a miniature single-serving tart size. It was good, and all are encouraged to try it, but I recall MikeG's effort a couple of summers ago as being more rewarding.

I finally made an authentic one and I have to say, I liked Robuchon's "clafouti tart" (which is what it really is) better than a true clafouti, which seemed very eggy. So I agree with Jim!

Mike G wrote:So I agree with Jim!

So do I! (It is you who should have been the lawyer, M. Gebert)

Ronna, the visual on thisrecipe seems to be like what you're describing. Is it what you're looking for?

Mhays wrote:Ronna, the visual on thisrecipe seems to be like what you're describing. Is it what you're looking for?

Thanks for the link.

You know, I think the problem is that what I was looking for isn't a traditional clafouti. I made this wonderfully simple blueberry cake recipe, which was closer to what I was looking for: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/blue ... index.html

I think I may try adding a bit of baking powder to the mix next time I make a clafouti.

Thanks again,
Ronna

Thanks - it struck me that the linked one was a little denser than what we usually make, but I see from the cake recipe that it's completely different. I'll be curious to see what you come up with.

I came into a bunch of fresh pears from my friend in Iowa, and this thread reminded me how much I enjoy clafouti (the eggy kind, not the cakey kind. To me, the characteristic taste of a clafouti is that egginess, and the whole reason I crave one.) I had never tried making it with pears before, but the end result was wonderful and eaten in its entirety within 8 hours. I followed the Julia Child recipe, substituting about 1.5 lbs of cored, skin-on pears (I have no idea what kind they were, as they came from a friend's tree. About the size of racquetball with red-green skin), cut into 1 to 1 1/2 inch cubes. I had only made clafouti with cherries or plums before, but was happy to learn that pears work out quite well, too.

I've always made it using John Thorne's recipe. I still have the original cut out of a magazine but I think it is also in Outlaw Cook. I found it here here but there is a very charming essay that goes with the recipe that is, of course, missing.

I think this is a little lighter than typical clafoutis. I use fresh cranberries cut in half, and I've also had good luck with thawed frozen peaches when I was desperate.

Wow, I was going to post that with Michigan cherries probably on their way out for the season (only one stand at Logan Square Farmer's Market had them today), I made an authentic clafouti from Julia Child's recipe today (as opposed to the Robuchon recipe referenced above) for the very first time. But then I read this:

I finally made an authentic one and I have to say, I liked Robuchon's "clafouti tart" (which is what it really is) better than a true clafouti, which seemed very eggy. So I agree with Jim!

Funny, I have no memory of that at all. Anyway, I made the Julia Child recipe again, apparently, and the texture and lack of a pie crust kind of grew on me. It may be that using better farm eggs helped with the flavor too. But I also think Robuchon's refinements, which made the version I used to make doubleplus good, could be adapted to the traditional recipe Child popularized. So I think what I would do is:

1) do Robuchon's technique of sprinkling the cherries with sugar and kirsch and cooking them down a bit with the alcohol
2) use vanilla sugar in the batter

Not sure if I would add the kirsch-cherry concentrate to the batter or not; it would dye it purple, which isn't bad, and probably add a nice flavor.

Anyway, here it is, and a lovely summer dessert it was indeed:



Yes, I pitted them, because otherwise my wife would be sure the kids were going to choke on them, and she'd probably be right.

In Montréal, it's spelled with an "-s", and the best are at their namesake boulangerie.

Geo

Geo wrote:In Montréal, it's spelled with an "-s", and the best are at their namesake boulangerie.

Geo

I tried (at the bottom of page one and the top of this page of this thread) to make that point about the spelling. This is, apparently, a case of vive la différence*, though it will always be spelled (or, perhaps, spelt) with an 's' by me.

*Or perhaps even vive la différance for those of you who are fans of Jacques Derrida.

I'm no fan, but Derrida did buy me a beer (a Pelforth, actually) one Sunday morning in the Jardin de Luxembourg. Fact.

And I'll always use the "-s".

Geo

Mike G wrote:Yes, I pitted them, because otherwise my wife would be sure the kids were going to choke on them, and she'd probably be right.

Sparky hates pitting cherries more than he hates choking....

Nice lookin' pie, Mike - we do this for breakfast all the time; I'll have to check out the different recipes.

Leaving pits in has the combined benefits of being French, authentic, and lazy. Although I do claim (and somewhat believe) that the pits impart a slight almond flavor, as reported.

I will continue to make pit-in clafutoutis even though I just bought a cherry pitter.

The good news is, if you've got one of these German-style cherry pitters



they work very well (after a bit o' practice) to pit olives!!

Geo

I use that pitter and I load it and then stick my hand (holding the tool) in a 8 cup measuring pitcher so the flying cherry juice does not end up all over my shirt. Every five cherries I dump the pits to be sure I've got them all removed from the cherries.

I owned two of the metal ones in that style and in both cases, sooner or later the pitting blade or whatever you want to call it eventually worked itself loose of the thing holding it in. Finally I bought an Oxo one where it's all one solid piece.

Yes, you should do it inside something, as they splatter like a head shot in a George Romero movie.

Olives *really* hold onto their pits, and they don't spatter (much), so it's great fun to use the tool as a projectile-projector. Surprises the other denizens of the kitchen when ¡boink! an olive pit glances off their noggin.

Geo

I scored cherries yesterday so I made clafoutis,

It was a perfect breakfast.

Hi,

Was your clafouti eggy tasting? I made one once. I didn't care much for fruit embedded eggs and never made it again.

Was my first impression wrong?

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:Hi,

Was your clafouti eggy tasting? I made one once. I didn't care much for fruit embedded eggs and never made it again.

Was my first impression wrong?

Regards,

Yes. Your impression was not wrong. It's eggy tasting. One person I gave a slice to described it as cherry bread pudding. I love it. I love the ease that it takes. I love how the sweetness is actually balanced between the fruit and the sugar in the batter. Perhaps you can try it with one fewer egg. While you would miss the custardy/eggy nature of the dish, there's nothing wrong with fruit embedded in cake.

This was essentially my take on 2 recipes. One was Dorie Greenspan & the other was Christopher Kimball. The milk, sugar, and vanilla amounts differed but both recipes called for 3 eggs.

any recent feelings about clafoutis, especially viz the controversies on this thread of how eggy to be, whether to have a crust, etc? looking for a recipe rec for this week!