Clafoutis (Cherries Baked in a Thin Custard Batter)

Variations

• Flaugnarde: made with any fruit other than cherries — pear, apple, plum, apricot — it takes a different name. In the Limousin, clafoutis means cherries.
• Far breton: the Breton cousin, with much more flour, so it sets closer to a dense cake than a custard, and studded with prunes.
• Savoury clafoutis: courgette, tomato, goat's cheese, the same batter without the sugar. What separates it from quiche is that there is no pastry.
• Instead of kirsch: rum or amaretto. Amaretto suits a pitted version particularly, since pitting is what takes the almond note away.

Tips

• Sixty grams of flour is the whole dish. The crème brûlée page says of itself that there is "no gelatine and no flour holding it together, so once it goes past its setting temperature there is no way back" — which is why it bakes at 150°C in a bain-marie. The same eggs and the same milk go into a 180°C oven here with no protection at all. Starch granules swelling between 60 and 75°C physically get between the egg proteins, stop the network contracting into curds, and push the setting temperature up by tens of degrees.
• It is what cooking eggs describes, several times over. That guide says "a splash of milk or cream raises the setting temperature and widens your margin". Flour does the same thing much harder. The guide's governing premise — "eggs go wrong from too much heat far more often than from too little" — has this dessert as its counter-example.
• It is also the thing pastel de nata uses without explaining. That recipe's custard contains cornflour and never says why; the starch is what lets it survive an oven above 250°C. It is the same reason crème pâtissière can be boiled outright (prinsesstårta).
• Quiche goes into a 190°C oven with no starch at all, so it has only the cream to lean on, and a few minutes too long and it weeps. A clafoutis has no such margin problem.
• Do not whip it. What lifts it in the oven is steam, not air. Rising high and sinking as it cools is normal, and beating air in only makes the fall bigger. This is not a batter that builds structure out of air the way madeleines or a pound cake do.
• Whether to pit the cherries. Limousin tradition leaves the stones in, because the kernel gives off benzaldehyde and with it the almond note. There is a practical reason too: pitted cherries release far more juice, which thins the batter and streaks it. Stones also contain amygdalin, so they are to be spat out rather than chewed, and pitting is the sensible choice if children are eating. Pitted, add a tablespoon of amaretto to put the aroma back.
• Never serve it fridge-cold, which turns it rubbery. Warm or barely tepid is its condition.