Blueberry Clafoutis is an exotic and luscious French dessert made with fresh blueberries covered in a light batter and baked in oven to make a mouth watering and appetizing traditional French dessert.
Clafouti is a traditional French dessert originated from the Limousin region of France and is a sort of a cross between a flan and a fruit filled pancake. It is an admirable yet simple sweet dish that can embrace any fresh fruit, traditionally made with cherries. You can add fresh fruits like apples, apricots, pears, peaches and plums to make delicious clafoutis.
French desserts include a mammoth variety of cakes, crepes, tarts, creams, cookies and so much more. The best French desserts recipes usually involve fresh fruits. Their cakes, tarts, flans, brulee and even breads are the best known all over the world. From fruit tarts and clafoutis to a teetering croquembouche, French desserts have an elegance of their own.
Dessert is a course that typically comes at the end of a meal, usually consisting of sweet food but sometimes of a strongly-flavored one, such as some cheeses. The word comes from the Old French 'desservir', "to clear the table." Clafoutis, generally spelled as clafouti in most Anglophone countries is a baked French dessert of black cherries arranged in a buttered dish covered with a thick flan like batter.
The clafouti is dusted with powdered sugar served lukewarm. Traditional Limousin clafoutis contain pits of the cherries. According to baking purists, the pits release a wonderful flavor when the dish is cooked. If the cherry pits are removed prior to baking, the clafoutis will be milder in flavor. This dish apparently popularized throughout France during the 19th century.
There are numerous variations in making of clafoutis using other fruits like red cherries, plums, prunes, apples, cranberries or blackberries. When other kinds of fruit are used instead of cherries, the dish is properly called a flaugnarde. Clafouti surprisingly is a mix between custard and a fruit pie. It can be served as a breakfast dish or a dessert.
Basically seems like a rustic French fruit dish texturally challenging as it does not have any crust but is smooth, silky and delicious. Blueberries are excellent fruits that are sold fresh or processed as individually quick frozen (IQF) fruit, purée, juice, or dried or infused berries, which in turn may be used in a variety of recipes such as jellies, jams, blueberry pies, muffins, snack foods, and cereals.
Blueberries have a diverse range of micronutrients, with notably high levels (relative to respective Dietary Reference Intakes) of the essential dietary mineral manganese, vitamin B6, vitamin C, vitamin K and dietary fiber. One serving provides a relatively low glycemic load score of 4 out of 100 per day.
To prepare this incredibly quick and easy to prepare Blueberry Clafoutis, firstly preheat oven to 425° F. Generously butter a casserole or baking dish. Combine 1 tablespoon vanilla extract, 3 large eggs, 2/3 cup sugar, 1 ¼ cup milk, and pinch of salt in a blender.
Blend for a few seconds to mix ingredients, then add ½ cup flour and blend until smooth, about 1 minute. Spread a pint of blueberries evenly in the greased casserole and pour batter into buttered skillet.
Bake until a skewer inserted into batter comes out clean and a golden brown crust has formed on top and bottom of clafoutis, about 30 minutes.
Dust with confectioners' sugar if you like. Serve immediately with a dusting of confectioners’ sugar and yogurt, creme fraiche or softly whipped cream.
Tip: Bake the clafouti until puffed and cooked through, about 35 minutes. Don’t worry as the clafouti will deflate when you take it out of the oven and let it cool for 20 minutes or so. The only thing to keep in mind is that you may have to adjust the sugar depending on the sweetness of the fruit.
Blueberry Clafoutis makes a humble French concoction of fresh fruits and a mix of milk, eggs and flour. It is easy and yet quite impressive dish.
Do try and enjoy this traditional French dessert.
Enjoy Baking!