Plum Clafoutis

Clafoutis is a French Dessert, normally made with ripe cherries, placed in a well buttered dish and covered with a rich batter, which bakes around them . . . kind of like a rich custard really.

You serve it lukewarm and dusted with icing sugar and it's really, really lovely.



You don't have to just make it with cherries though. Clafoutis is also very delicious when made with other stoned fruits . . .



Fruits like apricots, nectarines, peaches . . . and my favourite Plums!!!



My batter deviates somewhat from the norm as well, in that I have added sweetly fragrant Orange Flower water and some grated orange zest. Orange is a flavour that goes very well with plums.



If you wanted you could use an orange flavoured liqueuer instead of the Orange Flower water . . . such as Cointreau or Grand Marnier. Another tasty version includes prunes which you have soaked in armagnac.



It's so easy to do and so very tasty . . . the batter is silky and buttery . . . the fruit almost tart . . . the nuts all toasted and crunchy on the top.



This is bliss, pure and simple. Of course you could serve this with some vanilla ice cream or a dollop of creme fraiche. Then it would be double bliss . . .

Plums make this a very autumnally delicious dessert!! (It's hard to believe that August is almost over!!)



*Plum Clafoutis*
Serves 8 - 10
Printable Recipe

Deliciously simple . . . yet impressive.

softened butter and caster sugar to butter the dish with
10 ripe but firm plums, halved and pitted
4 large free range eggs
6 TBS caster sugar
5 TBS plain flour
450ml of cream (2 cups)
1 TBS orange flower water
the grated zest of one orange
70g of flaked almonds (1/2 cup)
icing sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 190*C/375*F/ gas mark5. Butter a large round baking dish or flan dish. Dust with sugar, knocking any excess out.

Place the plums down into the dish, cut sides down. Beat the eggs together with the sugar and flour until smooth. Whisk in the cream, orange flower water and orange zest. Pour the resulting batter over the plums in the baking dish. Sprinkle with the almonds. Bake for 40 minutes, until well risen, lightly browned and set. Remove from the oven. Cool to lukewarm. Dust with icing suga and cut into wedges to serve.

Note - baking times are subjective and vary according to your own oven. I can only speak from my experience with my own oven. If you think that your clafoutis is browning too quickly, then you may loosely cover it with some foil during the last ten minutes of baking. If you find that it's not set by the end of the suggested cooking time, then by all means leave it in for a bit longer. I also like to have all of my ingredients at room temperature when I start, so take your eggs out of the fridge about an hour before you want to use them and measure out the cream and allow that to come to room temperature as well. This may allow for a shorter baking time. If your ingredients are cold then it will take longer of course!

Also I use Double Cream for this.