Yet another great party idea. Clafouti are basically a baked souflee-like batter-based dessert. It's a fairly loose batter poured into a pan and then baked in a fairly hot oven. The result comes out not unlike "Dutch Baby" pancakes (sort of puffed up and brown). Usually some form of fruit is put into the pan before the batter. We made two kinds, a sour cherry (using jars of Morellos from Trader Joe's) and prunes re-hydrated in congac. Prunes are usually used in a very similar desert is known as a "far".
In addition to being quick to make when the time comes, it's a fairly unusual dessert for most Americans. It's always fun to serve something people haven't had a million times before.
I just did a google for a recipe for this one, and here's what we used as a base. As typical, we simplified this a bit, and just tossed all of the mis into the blender and whapped it up when the time came. We also used basic powdered sugar for the final dusting, which we placed into a little cheesecloth "bag" as part of our prep.
Clafouti/Far (9 inch pie pan, probably need to double for each)Posted by dowdy at January 3, 2006 02:38 PM1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
3/4 pound Italian prune plums, halved and pitted
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup light cream
3/4 cup flour
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
Vanilla sugar, for sprinklingPreheat oven to 400 degrees and butter the pie plate well.
Sprinkle the pie plate with the 1 tablespoon sugar and distribute the plum halves
over the sugar, skin side down. In a blender blend the milk, light cream, flour,
eggs, egg yolk and salt for 2 minutes. Add the 1/4 cup sugar and the vanilla, blend
the mixture for a few seconds and pour it over the plums. Bake the clafouti in the
middle of the oven for about 30 minutes or until puffed and golden. Dust the clafouti
with vanilla sugar and serve at once.