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VANILLA SCENTED PLUM CLAFOUTIS

Author : Ria Mathew Blog :♥Ria's Collection♥ Date: 4/4/2012 2:22:00 PM

Now a days, I'm trying to incorporate more fruits into my diet and end up picking quite a lot of fruits thinking they all would go into my belly in their raw state. It doesn't happen like that most of the time.No matter how much I try, I end up pairing them with flour, butter & sugar. This one was no exception. Everytime I opened my fridge, I would see the ripe plums sitting pretty in a bowl and staring at me.

Enough of staring dear plums, come to me, let me put you into good use! So I searched a way of using them up, a way I haven't travelled before. Of course, the Google came into my rescue! Just type in those magical words you want to see and there you have it, in all forms right in front of you!

I've noticed that Jobin loves desserts with fruits in them. He scrapes his bowl clean whenever I've made Orange-Blackberry Cobbler, Cherry Crumble, Nectarine-Blueberry Galette,Lavender infused Stone Fruit Tartelettes, Pear & Chocolate Crumble etc in the past. This time, I decided to go with a soft filling like a custard with plenty of fruits in it and see how he would enjoy it. It was a winner all the way!

Clafoutis is a French dessert of Black cherries arranged in a buttered dish and covered with a flan like batter. It is then dusted with powdered sugar and served warm. Source - Wikipedia.

Cherries are not in season here right now but a lot of other stone fruits are. Plums, peaches,nectarines etc are available in plenty. I think most of them are imported as it's still not the season here for the local fruits. The plums which I bought were from Chile. They were the size of an orange we get in India.

The original recipe didn't call for Vanilla but I love using them in everything.I still have a big bag of Organic Vanilla Beans that I carried with me all the way from India. So I pulled out a bean, split into half, scraped it out with the blunt side of my knife and added it to the custard mix. The empty bean was then cut into 4 and was dumped into my sugar container to infuse my regular sugar and convert them into the fragrant vanilla sugar.

The pale yellow custard fleckled with vanilla paired with plums sautéed in butter and sugar was a real delight to our senses. There were some pan juices left behind and I made sure it was all added to the pudding dish along with the plums so that they remain juicy and nice. This is a very quick dessert that you can assemble and bake in a few minutes notice provided you have some ripe fruits on hand.

VANILLA SCENTED PLUM CLAFOUTIS
Recipe source : La Tartine Gourmande

Ingredients:
450g plums
2 tbsp butter + 2 tbsp sugar
2 eggs plus 1 yolk
1/2 c sugar
100 ml cream
3/4 c milk
50g cornflour
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped

Method: Pre-heat the oven to 410 F . Butter your pudding dish and sprinkle some sugar in it.
Wash and stone the plums. Cut them into 2 inch pieces. Melt butter in a pan and add 2 tbsp sugar and fruits to it . Let it cook on med-high for 5 mins.
In a bowl, mix milk and cornflour.In another bowl, beat the eggs + yolk together. Add sugar and mix well. Add cream and mix. Next,add the milk and vanilla to it. Arrange the fruits in your pudding dish and pour the custard mix over it. Bake till golden and puffed,about 28-30 mins. Once they are out of the oven, sprinkle with sugar and eat lukewarm, preferably.

This dessert is good. It's like eating a soft warm pudding filled with fruits. Since the ingredients are pretty basic, I'm sure it will be loved by almost anyone. I cannot wait for the cherry season to begin here so that I can bake these as much as I want to!