As is my way, I found myself hopelessly attracted to an attractive baking picture that arrived in my inbox earlier this summer. That picture was of Julia Child's Berry Clafoutis, which seemed to perfectly capture the essence of summer with its blackberry-spotted top.
For my clafoutis, I used farmer's market blueberries, which were great for a simple mid-summer ending to a weekend meal. The clafoutis was rich and egg-y, like a flan, while also featuring the fruit really well. The only change I am certain to make in the future is to add some powdered sugar to the cooled clafoutis or to serve it with ice cream to complement the tartness of the fruit.
As I prepared the clafoutis, I realized that I didn't have a stove-top + oven-safe dish to pre-cook the initial layer of dough on the stove-top, an approach called for in the New York Times recipe I was following. So instead of that technique, I found two other websites that just required pre-baking the initial clafoutis dough layer in a preheated oven instead using a stovetop. Phew, recipe saved!
You start making a clafoutis by mixing the dough ingredients together in the blender until frothy.
Then pour a small amount the batter (approx. 1/4 inch layer) into your buttered baking dish and place into the preheated oven for about 5 minutes or until a baked film forms on top of the layer.
After removing from the oven, add your berries and a bit of sugar before adding the rest of the batter. One NY Times commenter also recommends putting sugar on top of the prepared batter to create a bit of a caramelized topping – I'll try that approach next time as well.
After 50 minutes, my clafoutis was perfectly risen and smelled delicious. While it fell a fair amount while cooling, the thicker texture was fantastic. I look forward to making this with more types of berries in the future!
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