Survival Sunday 26: Apple Clafoutis

I made a baked good that sounds 1000x more complex than it is!

Behold, an apple clafoutis!

So what is a clafoutis?

Clafoutis are kind of a custard bake that forms its own crust in the oven. It consists of flour, sugar, eggs, milk, cream, vanilla, fruit, and booze. In my case, I used Granny Smith apples & Jack Daniels because that's what we had. The Organic Valley Recipe I used called for blackberries & orange liquour, neither of which were available at the time.

So how did I make it?

INGREDIENTS:
1 cup flour, sifted
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
3 large eggs
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 cup 2% milk (I used 1% milk and it worked fine)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (I prefer natural to artificial)
1 Tbsp alcohol of your choice (or none - I used Jack Daniels as I mentioned)
2 cups fruit (I used apples, but you do you)
2 Tbsp cold butter, cut into little bits

PROCESS:

1) Preheat your oven to 350℉ (a little over 175℃) and grease and flour a 10" ceramic flan, quiche or pie pan. Make sure it's actually oven safe, as the one I used cracked while baking. Nothing got ruined besides the pan, but to be on the safe side, set your pan on a cookie sheet when you fill and bake it.

2) Whisk your dry ingredients together. I sifted mine together, though since my salt was coarser than usual, it had to be added last or it wouldn't go through the mesh. Regardless, you want a bowl full of dry ingredients.

Flour

Sugar

Salt

The speckles are the salt!

3) In a separate bowl, mix the wet ingredients (eggs, milk, cream, vanilla, alcohol)

Eggs!

Heavy cream (which the cat was very interested in)

I used extra cream to make up for the missing 1% milk fat in my milk!

Oops - I should've paid more attention to what milk we had!
It's okay though.

Look how thick the cream was! It left a film on the cup!

The good vanilla

Leftover blurry booze.
No one in my house drinks, so this stuff is...
not new.

Liquids together

Liquids combined!

4) Now mix the wet ingredients into the dry ones until the lumps are all gone. I did my best, guys. It took forever. Next time I'll use the stand mixer.

As you can see, the lumps form immediately

And take forever to get worked out!

5) Now dump your smooth mixture into your pie/quiche/flan pan and add your fruit!

Don't be too worried about how much fruit you add.
It'll fit.

6) Finally, dot the clafoutis with those cold butter bits. Intersperse these amongst the fruit chunks. I have no picture of this. Nor do I have a picture of the raw clafoutis with the ground cinnamon on top before I put it in the oven for 40-50 minutes.

7) After 40-50 minutes have passed, your clafoutis should have risen, a slight crust formed on the edges, and the center should be juuuuuust set. The second the center doesn't seem liquid anymore, take it out and let it cool. You can eat it warm, room temp, or cold, but it'll be good any way you try it!

See? Delicious.
There was kind of a pool of butter in the middle.
No one complained.

So there you have it! A tasty custardy dish you can change up to suit your tastes! I'm gonna try to see if I can find a chocolate variation online and make that some time! I'd imagine cranberry (with orange zest & liquour) would be delicious, as would a peach version for the summer!

Now go out there and Enjoy Something!
FC