Clafoutis, or the Reason Why Cherries Were Created

For me, summer only really starts the day I can make the first clafoutis, or French cherry pie! This year, that happened on Wednesday. Since then, I’ve baked six clafoutis – that is an average of 1,2 per day. That might tell something about how irresistible this thing is!

The recipe is from my very old version of Larousse de la Cuisine, which I haven’t seen for ages – but that’s ok, because this is one of the few recipes I could recite by heart even if woken up in the middle of the night.

You’re supposed to use cherries without removing the pits, and I’d suggest you really don’t. If you remove the pits, the whole thing gets coloured by the cherry juice, and doesn’t look that great…

For about six servings you need:

• 500g cherries


• 4 eggs


• 80g flour (I use 40g whole-grain, 40g all-purpose wheat)


• 80g butter


• 125g sugar


• 1 tsp vanilla sugar


• 250ml milk

This is how to do it:

Set your oven to 190C. Place the cherries (with their pits still in!) in a round cake form with a diameter of 26cm or so. Melt the butter. Crack the eggs in a baking bowl, and beat them lightly together with sugar and vanilla sugar (I emphasize the word lightly! A bit like when you’re doing an omelette…). Then add flour, stir until it gets well mixes, then add milk and butter, and slightly stir again.

Pour the batter over the cherries and bake your clafoutis until it’s set and nicely brown on the top. Remove form the oven and let cool a bit. Then decorate with confectioner’s sugar and serve – either a bit warm, or completely cooled down. And enjoy the summer! :)