Let me introduce you to my favorite part of blogging: my "search button." Do you know about this? It's right over there -->, on the right hand side of the blog, under that list of lovely food blogs. Yes, I am in love with my search button and I will tell you why. Sometimes the search button is helpful to me when I am trying to find one of my own recipes, particularly those that I have totally forgotten about (is that possible? this blog is only 9 months old...) However, the search button gets really helpful when I am trying to find a great recipe from one of my favorite bloggers. I simply enter a word in the box and it gives me a list of recipes from my "Food for Thought" blogroll. So today, when I had waaaaay too many plums that were just begging to be used, I was able to enter the word "plum" and VOILA! I had Smitten Kitchen's Dimply Plum Cake, a peach and plum crisp from 101 Cookbooks, and this intriguing Plum Clafoutis from Molly at Orangette. I also thought about taking this recipe for a Nectarine Browned Butter Buckle and making it with plums. I think I still might do it sometime this summer. After all, the plums are showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
Oh these plums. I love them. Perhaps I love them too much, as I keep buying them before I have finished the last batch. First I was buying pint after pint of the tiny yellow ones. Now I can't resist the slightly larger deep purple plums. Up until today, I have just eaten them as is, their tart skin making my mouth pucker and the cool, juicy sweet flesh refreshing me on the hottest of days. It seems as though I truly cannot get enough of them this season.
But today I needed to do something about my never ending plum supply. Cue the Lady Gouda search button. Cue Orangette's Clafoutis. Ok, so what the heck is a clafoutis? I have just done this to you, with my Blueberry Kuchen a few weeks back. The clafoutis, based on some quick research, is a humble French dessert, typically made with cherries. The clafoutis seems to fall somewhere between a custard, flan, a popover, and a dutch baby pancake and specked with fruit. It is very simple to throw together and is seriously good.
Molly swapped black plums for the blueberries from Christopher Kimball’s recipe. She also recommends using the traditional cherry, apricots, blackberries in the summer, or even apples and pears during autumn. The clafoutis is probably best warm out of the oven, but also tastes great the next day, cold.
3 medium black plums, pitted and cut into eight wedges each*
3 large eggs
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 cup whole milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
A pinch of salt
1/2 cup unbleached, all-purpose flour
*my plums were tiny, so I used about 6-7 of them, cutting awkward chunks off to avoid the tiny pit- not as pretty as Molly’s, but just as tasty, I’m sure!
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, and lightly butter a 9-inch pie dish. Arrange the plum wedges, skin side down, in a decorative pattern on the bottom of the dish.
Whisk the eggs and sugar in a medium bowl until pale yellow, about 1 minute. Add the milk, vanilla, and salt, and whisk to combine.
Sprinkle the flour over the batter, and whisk until smooth. Pour the batter gently over the plums, trying to disturb them as little as possible (some will float and move around no matter how gentle you are). Bake the clafoutis until puffed and nicely golden around the edges, about 45-50 minutes. Remove the clafoutis from the oven, and allow it to cool for a half hour or so, during which time you’ll see it deflate and settle a bit. Serve it warm or at room temperature.
I want to thank you for changing my opinions of plums, which prior to this recipe, were directly connected with 4th session at camp fruit.
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