charlys-room: Summer Fruit Clafouti...

It can't be summer without some summer fresh fruit desserts, can it? This is the newest favourite at our house...a summer fruit clafouti. What's a clafouti, you say? To put simply, it's a name for a simple French country dessert and is made with a quick batter poured over fresh fruit and then baked in the oven. Plus, I love saying 'Clafouti' in my best mock French accent!

The great thing about this dessert is that you can use almost any fruit you have on hand, or a mixture, which is what I used for today's clafouti...plums, apricots and blueberries. These fruits were going soft in my fridge and needed to be used. But you could use plums, apricots, cherries, peaches, pears, raspberries,etc. or any combination.This dessert is super simple to make and only takes about 15 minutes to assemble to go into the oven.

Ingredients

Fresh fruit, any type, enough to cover the bottom of a 10 inch pie plate.

1/2 to 1 cup of sugar, regular white sugar or turbinado sugar {I used turbinado sugar}

3 eggs

1 1/3 cups milk

2/3 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 pinch salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions:

1.Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Butter a 10 inch pie plate.

2. Arrange sliced fruit to cover the entire bottom of the pie plate. Sprinkle sugar over the top of the fruit.If the fruit is very sweet, sprinkle lightly with sugar. If the fruit is very tart, sprinkle liberally with sugar. Sprinkle fruit with lemon zest and cinnamon. In a blender, combine 3 tablespoons of sugar, eggs, milk, flour, vanilla, and salt. Process until smooth, about 2 minutes. Pour over the fruit in the pan.

3.Bake for 30 to 45 minutes in the preheated oven, or until firm and lightly browned. Let stand 5 minutes before slicing. Dust with confectioners' sugar before serving.

Here is the bottom of the pie plate. I actually made 2 clafoutis because I had enough fruit to make 2 of these and my kids love fruit desserts.

The fruit is sprinkled with turbinado sugar, which is a refined raw sugar that looks like coarse beige crystals. I keep turbindao sugar in my kitchen all the time because I like to sprinkle it on muffins or scones, etc. Regular sugar will work just as well. Then sprinkle the lemon zest and cinnamon on the fruit.

The custard-like batter is made in the blender. If you don't own a blender, a whisk or spatula will do the job.

The batter is poured over the fresh fruit and the dessert is ready to go in the oven.

After 35 minutes, the dessert is puffed up and golden and ready to come out.

I topped our clafouti with a little whipped cream and a touch of cinnamon. When I was getting ready to photograph it to share here, I pulled out one of my Grandmother's lovely vintage tablecloths. It's hand embroidered, several years old and so pretty! I miss her so much and using some of her pretty things helps keep me close to her.

Clafoutis have a very custard-like texture and can be eaten warm or cold. The combination of the warm fruit with the custard is delicious and fragrant.