This is our third recipe for the Sunday cooking group Weekend in a French Kitchen cooking from Mimi Thorisson's A Kitchen in France: A Year of Cooking in My Farmhouse, Cherry Clafoutis, found on page 135. Mimi also has the recipe posted online here.
The ingredient list: butter, fresh cherries, flour, sugar, salt, vanilla bean, milk, eggs, orange flower water, and confectioner's sugar.
So, clafoutis-making might not be my thing. I have made them before and they turned out just okay. I made this one and it was completely strange, all bumpy in all the wrong places, not the cherries, which are supposed to be bumpy, but the batter was all risen on one side and not the other so I'm guessing my mixing technique was a bit distracted that morning. Hmmm. I gave Peggy a quick text and she sent me a photo of hers, which was beautiful, so I knew it had to be operator error on my part with this recipe. Back to the baking counter. The second time around was much better and turned out just fine. Can't imagine what I did with that first one but there you have it, the old adage, "if at first you don't succeed, try, try, again..."
It all tasted fine, I'm not the biggest clafoutis fan in general, but Mark liked it and it was better the second day, the flavors had settled nicely. I liked using the fresh deepest dark red Michigan cherries (they look purple in the photos) from my CSA basket so it was good I had those for both attempts. Would I make this again? Maybe not, more of a personal taste than anything, not the recipe itself. It was enjoyed by those who ate it and I enjoyed finding out about orange flower water, something I had not used before now. Oh, and I did pit the cherries...I cook for guys and they aren't going to be fond of cherry pits in desserts, so I went with personal preference on this one.
If you would like to see how the others fared, click here and follow the links. Next week's recipe is Red Berry Barquettes, page 132.