Clafoutis - rhymes with “patootie” - may be the perfect dessert:  Impressive to look at, easy to make, light on the tummy, relatively short on fat and calories, made with local fruit but there’s a perfectly acceptable version of it made with canned peaches.  The French don’t even pit their cherries in the most traditional version of clafoutis, believing the pits add irreplaceable flavor.  This is the laziest route I know to a great French dessert that charms - even wows - in every way.

From the Limousin region of 19th century France, clafoutis is a simple batter made by whirring eggs, milk, flour and sugar in a blender.  This was probably almost as easy to make even in the 19th century.  Lighter than a custard, the batter is poured over the fruit in a pie pan, baked, sprinkled with confectionary sugar and served warm.  According to our friends at Wikipedia, the traditional clafoutis (from the verb “clafir,” meaning “to fill”) was made with, as mentioned, cherries and their pits, but many other fruits nestle happily into a clafoutis - plums, prunes, cranberries and blackberries.  The canned peach version is a delicious, just-sweet-enough, warm dessert to make mid-winter when fresh fruit is dismal.   To be accurate, I learned that when clafoutis strays away from cherries apparently it’s no longer officially clafoutis, but flaugnarde.

 

This seems to be a banner year for fruit in New England, and our local prune plums, which stay firm and sweet, without releasing a lot of juices when baked, make a version of clafoutis that is perfect, a certain challenge to those French cherries and their pits.

 

Prune Plum Clafoutis

Ingredients

6 tablespoons white sugar, divided

14 Italian prune plums, halved and pitted

3 eggs

1 1/3 cups milk

2/3 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 pinch salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Butter a 10 inch pie plate, and sprinkle 1 tablespoon of sugar over the bottom.

Arrange the plum halves, cut side down, so that they cover the entire bottom of the pie plate. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of sugar over the top of the plums.

In a blender, combine the remaining 3 tablespoons of sugar, eggs, milk, flour, lemon zest, cinnamon, vanilla, and salt. Process until smooth, about 2 minutes. Pour over the fruit in the pan.

Bake for 50 to 60 minutes in the preheated oven, or until firm and lightly browned. Let stand 5 minutes before slicing. Dust with confectioners' sugar before serving.