Clafruittastic Cinnamon Times
I bloody love clafoutis. It’s basically like a giant fruity French Yorkshire pudding. At one stage while studying I had a bit of a cla-phase in which I baked them with every type of fruit imaginable (cherries, raspberries, figs – they’re all good). In spite of actually being extremely proficient in French pronunciation, my girlfriend, Charlotte, has always insisted on calling them ‘cla-foo-tiss’. The more I clenched my teeth and said “it’s a cla-foo-tee” the more she would shout “Aha clafootiss, clafootiss!” with such total glee that I would lose my ability to argue.
I made this dessert with strawberries, mainly because I happened to have some lying around. (Yeah, that’s right, I’ve got strawberries just lying around. That actually working at a job during the summer months (summer months = holiday months obvs!?) madness seems to be paying off.) In the end the whole strawb, vanilla, cinnamon, combo totally fitted the bill, and I am glad that I took advantage of them while they are still at least vaguely in season. There’s nothing more exciting than strawberry season. (That’s right. Nothing.) When my sisters and I were tiny we always used to go on holiday to Germany. We’d spend what felt like days and days in the ‘pick-your-own’ field with its giant wooden strawberry shaped sign, totally gorging on overripe fruit until our entire faces were pink. Years later I relived my pick-your-own memories at my friend Jo’s sixteenth birthday party. Jo, Nat and I spent the morning collecting berries and the afternoon at the local rubbish dump, sifting through the Formica-topped tables and cutlery assortments. I seem to remember coming home with a half a punnet of fruit, half a guitar and a broken one track recorder that weighed about a tonne failed to have any use except for providing my baby brother with weeks of tape-tangling entertainment. Sixteen year old me was super cool. Then again sixteen year old me would no doubt have point blank refused to work all summer for the luxury of spare groceries or otherwise. Sixteen year old me might have even called this a “clafootiss”.
Strawberry and cinnamon clafoutis
Ingredients
Butter for greasing
Two good handfuls strawberries, quartered if they’re big
40g plain flour
75g caster sugar
Pinch salt
1 tsp vanilla essence
¼ tsp ground cinnamon + extra for dusting
2 eggs
180ml milk
Extra stuff
Oven
18cm cake tin
Greaseproof paper
Knife
Big bowl
Whisk
Method
This is quite a tiny clafoutis – serves two clafoutis lovers in one sitting or four pudding-phobes. Obvs you can increase the recipe and tin size – it’ll just need a bit longer in the oven. Or go crazy and ignore the evidence photographed above by changing up your flavour combo. Preheat the oven to 180c and grease and line your tin (do as I say not as I do yo).
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Chop your strawbs if they need it and spread ‘em out in your tin. Whisk all the rest of your ingredients together bit by bit starting with the dry stuff, then the eggs, then the milk.
Pour the lot over the fruit, rearranging if any start to float too close together.
Bake for 30-35 minutes – it should be puffy and golden brown on top – and sprinkle with cinnamon. Serve hot or cold with whatever you feel. I think vanilla ice cream could be good?
Grapes. Had ’em lying around.