Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

Say it with me: Clafouti!

This time of year, the fruits of summer are coming thick and fast. If you have a tree in your yard, you’re probably trying to figure out what to do with umpteen pounds of <insert fruit type here>.

For us, it’s Italian plums, aka “Italian prune plums.” This year, it’s a bumper crop. All our friends who also have Italian plum trees in their yards are complaining that the branches are bending near-to-breaking under the weight of all the fruit.

What do you do with a hundred pounds of Italian plums? Well, here’s one thing I found this weekend: Clafouti.

Clafouti is a dead-easy, low-fat, low-sugar, quick-prep, super-yummy dessert that you can make with almost any fruit you have in abundance. In my mind, it’s a cross between a custard and a soufflé, with a little bit of Finnish pannukakku tossed in for good measure. Most recipes you’ll find call for cherries as the fruit, but I’ve seen raspberries, peaches, pears, and mixtures, as well as plums. Anything that will withstand cooking will be good.

Plum Clafouti

Ingredients

• 15 Italian prune plums
• 3 eggs
• 2/3 cup flour
• 1 1/3 cup milk
• 1/2 to 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 1/2 tsp lemon zest
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 6 tbsp granulated sugar, divided
• caster sugar for garnish

Procedure

• Preheat the oven to 375°F.
• Butter a 10″ glass pie pan, and coat it with 1 tbsp of the sugar
• Cut the plums in half, remove the pit, and arrange them cut-side down in the pie pan. If you have more, you can put some on top, cut-side up.
• Sprinkle the plums with 1 tbsp of the sugar
• Put eggs, flour, milk, vanilla, lemon zest, 3 tbsp sugar, and cinnamon (everything else except the caster sugar) into a blender/processor and whiz for 2 minutes.
• Pour the thin batter over the plums until it you’ve nearly filled the pie plate.
• Bake for 50-60 minutes (I like it closer to 60)
• Remove, let cool for 5 min, serve, and sprinkle with caster sugar.

Notes

• Some people use a deep ceramic dish instead of a pie plate. You can even do this up in a skillet, if it’s oven-proof. Whatever works!

And it’s also exceptionally good cold the next day, with coffee.

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