Plum Clafoutis & Port

Let’s eat with the seasons! More flavour!

I adore summer in Australia, I specially enjoy a drink and meal outside in my garden.  I enjoy a party and cooking for friends.  Sometimes it is  a BBQ or I will cook a big Paella and a great dessert using seasonal fruits.  Fruits eaten within the growing season simply have more flavour, and the prices are lower.

I am always looking for inspiration and today supermarkets  in  many countries publish free magazines that you can pick up at their cashiers.  Some of these magazines are really good.   They are beautifully done, they are extremely helpful, they also walk me through the seasons, and they introduce me to new ingredients and new recipes.  This recipe is one of them, it is a recipe from a well known supermarket magazine in Australia.

I changed the recipe to use plums because traditionally Clafoutis is baked with black cherries, but it is summer in Australia and plums are everywhere.  They are delicious eaten straight from the punnet or in a fresh salad, but cooking them brings out their flavour and heightens their acidity.   They are my summer treat!

 

Ingredients

• 100 grams almond meal
• 30 grams plain flour
• 200 grams caster sugar
• sea salt
• 4 eggs
• 6 egg yolks
• 500 ml thickened cream
• 20 grams butter, softened
• 4 tablespoons of port to marinate the plums
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar to marinate the plums
• 500 grams of sweet plums, pitted and cut in half, marinated in port and brown sugar
• 1/4 cup of port
• icing sugar to serve

Method

• Marinate the plum halves overnight.
• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Sift the flour into a bowl, add the almond meal, sugar, and salt and whisk to combine.

• Add the eggs and whisk until the mixture looks like a smooth batter.
• Whisk in the cream and port.
• Put the mixture in a jug, covered with cling film and let it rest overnight in the fridge.

• Next day let the mixture come to room temperature.
• Generously grease the baking dish with the soft butter.
• Discard the liquid from the plums, and place the halves on the base of your baking dish.
• Stir the batter and pour over the plums.

• Place the baking dish on the middle rack of the oven.
• Cook for 45 minutes until brown and crunchy on the top, but still soft and wobbly in the middle.

• To serve, dust it with icing sugar.

Tips

• If you have any plums left over thinly slice them into a bowl and use the discarded marinade to marinate these slices.  Let them marinate in this juice for a least an hour.  Then you can spoon them as a sauce over the Clafoutis when you serve it.
• I also like to use figs when making a Clafoutis.  In Australia their season is short and normally they are in the markets in late summer.  Marinate the figs in Port.  The figs will taste sweeter.