Apple Cinnamon Clafouti

Hi Everyone!  Though I was not entirely thrilled to have lost an hour of sleep this past weekend, I am definitely excited about having daylight lasting past 6pm and the hope that winter will be done for the season.  While, I also didn’t do too much cooking over the weekend I did promise some people that I would post the dessert from my Valentine’s Day meal, apple cinnamon clafouti.  A clafouti is a baked French custard/flan filled with fruit.  Traditionally, black cherries are used for this dish, however now there are recipes for almost any fruit imaginable.  I have actually thought about making a clafouti several times now, but have never actually attempted it.  Mostly, because I had never tasted one and was not entirely sure what I was going to get.  This time I was looking for an easy and light dessert recipe because we were preparing an appetizer and an entrée as well.  Unfortunately, berries were a little bit pricey and peaches and cherries were not in season yet, so I settled on apples even though I loathe peeling them.  The clafouti turned out perfect and just what I was hoping for.  It satisfied my sweet tooth without being too decadent that I could only eat a sliver…in fact I pretty much ate a fourth of the dessert on night 1.

The clafouti was so delicious that I already have plans to make a raspberry, cherry and a peach version!  Just waiting until those fruits to be in season.  I think the only adjustment that you would have to make is that you don’t need to sauté the other types of fruit before baking.  Be creative and definitely give this recipe a try.  The original recipe, from Sally Schmidt, included brandy but we didn’t have any on hand so that was omitted.

Apple Cinnamon Clafouti

Ingredients

Apples:
4 granny smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced
4 Tbsp butter
½ c plus 2 tsp sugar
ground cinnamon

Batter:
3 eggs
1 c light cream (we used half and half)
8 Tbsp butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla
2/3 c flour
½ c sugar
½ tsp salt

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  In a blender, combine eggs, half and half, 6 Tbsp of butter, vanilla, flour sugar and salt.  Blend until the batter is smooth and then set it aside.
2. Take the remaining 2 Tbsp of butter and grease a 10” pie plate (best if it is a deep pie plate but a standard one will also work).  At this point the recipe said to place the greased pie plate in the oven to heat…well I think about a few minutes went by and we started to smell something burn.  So, I am not entirely sure if this step is necessary, but I think you should save it for until the apples are almost done.
3. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the apples and a ½ c sugar and cook until the apples are starting to soften. The color becomes a little darker.
4. Remove the pie plate from the oven and pour in half of the batter.  Arrange the warm apples slice over the batter, reserving the juices.  After arranging the first 15 slices, I ended up just kind of throwing the rest of the slice into the pan.  Just being careful that they were about evenly distributed.
5. Pour the remaining batter over the apple slices.  We actually did not use up all of the batter because our pan was over flowing but it still worked out just fine.
6. Sprinkle the remaining sugar and cinnamon over the batter.
7. Bake the clafouti for 25-30 minutes, until it is golden and set in the center.
8. Drizzle with the warmed reserved butter and apple juices.

The clafouti was delicious and it was suggested that it was best served at room temperature with either a dusting of powdered sugar or a dollop of whipped cream.  I tried the clafouti warm, room temperature and cold and all three variations were good but I agree that eating this dessert at room temperature was the best.  I skipped both the powdered sugar and the whipped cream this time because the clafouti was delicious on its own.  This was a great recipe and pretty much fool proof.  I will be making good use of the recipe and will let you know how the other variations go!  In the mean time happy eating!