Plum Clafoutis - Difficult to Say, Easy to Make!

For the past couple of CSA weeks we have been getting a handful of small, sweet plums.  Since we had a bunch, I wanted to do something more than just eat them plain, so I started flipping through cookbooks until I found a recipe for Plum Clafoutis.  While I had never heard of it before, the picture in Joanne Chang's Flour cookbook looked delicious, and the all ingredients were something I had on hand - reason enough!

Plum Clafoutis

Traditionally, clafoutis is made with black cherries, but obviously you can use just about any fruit.  The batter is said to be more like a pancake or a flan-like consistency, so I was curious to see the final product.

The Ingredients

To begin, I cut up all the plums into sixths and placed them in a bowl and tossed them with enough sugar to generously coat them.

Chopped plums

Meanwhile, I melted some butter and added it to a baking dish and coated the bottom and sides.  While the recipe called for a 9 x 13, I did not have enough plums for that so I used a 9 x 9 dish.  The sugar-coated plums then went into the baking dish.

Plums waiting for the rest of the good stuff

In a separate bowl, I combined the flour, sugar, and salt.

Dry Ingredients (hard to see, but I swear its in there!)

In another bowl I whisked the eggs and then continued to whisk in the dry ingredients until it was thoroughly combined.  Once combined, I stirred in the vanilla.  The recipe also called for almond extract, which I thought we had, but it turns out we didn't, so I just added a bit more vanilla (good thing I LOVE the flavor!).

Batter

Finally, I poured the batter over the plums in the baking dish. 

Ready for the oven

The baking dish went into a 400 degree oven for about 40 minutes. 

Clafoutis!

Once the top was golden brown, I removed it from the oven and let it cool for about 20-30 minutes until it was ready to enjoy!

Yummy Clafoutis!

To add a bit more to the presentation you can sprinkle the top with a bit of confectioners sugar, but we just dug right in.  This was a great weekday dessert - it was so easy to make and delicious right out of the oven.  I definitely will be making this again, but maybe will try out a different fruit, or maybe a fun combination!