by Arlene and Larry Dunn, August 4, 2020
We are mad for Clafoutis! Everyone who know us, and most anyone who’s even tripped on us on social media, knows that from our frequent posts when we make one. In the middle of August, our friend composer Spencer Arias will release an episode of his Cooking with Creatives series on his YouTube channel, which features us making a classic Black Cherry Clafoutis in our kitchen, while he makes one in his kitchen. We had a fascinating conversation, via Zoom, along the way. We won’t spoil the show for you by spilling the beans on the conversation. But we thought it would be helpful to put up this post about Clafoutis (with buttons below to download our recipes), so Spencer can link to this page when he posts our episode.
Clafoutis is a centuries-old dessert from the Limousin region of France, famous for Limoges porcelain, Limousin cattle, and oak barrels for aging Cognac. The name Clafoutis derives from the Occitan (an ancient language of southern France and neighboring areas of Spain and Italy) word clafir, meaning “to fill.” This is an apt name, as traditional Clafoutis is a custardy batter, filled with black cherries.
Clafoutis, of course, can be, and often is, filled with myriad other fruits. And we would argue that it ought to be made with fruit that is fresh off your local trees or bushes, in season. But some purists claim that a Clafoutis-like thing filled with anything but black cherries is not a Clafoutis but a flaugnarde. But then plenty of those same purist also say the pits should be left in the cherries. For simplicity, we call all these derivations Clafoutis, and leave it at that.
We don’t recall exactly where or when we were first served Clafoutis, nor by whom. But we were immediately entranced, and we set out discover how to make it. There are hundreds of Clafoutis recipes online. After reviewing many of them, we settled on one from chef Hubert Keller, proprietor of the famed Fleur de Lys restaurant in San Francisco (now closed). We’ve made a few minor adaptations over the years, but we’ve had consistently good results with it. You can download our Classic Clafoutis recipe below.
A few years ago, something set us down a path to try making a savory version of Clafoutis. There are some recipes online, but we decided to see if we could simply tweak and adapt our own recipe. The first step was to remove the sugar and try filling it with some savory ingredients. That worked fairly well, but we decided we needed to increase the number of eggs. Our favorite variation so far, hands down, is home-cured salmon gravlax with goat cheese and herbs. You can also download our Savory Clafoutis recipe below.
We urge you to try making a Clafoutis, sweet or savory, in your own kitchen sometime soon. We doubt you’ll be disappointed.