Clafoutis Type of Dessert From Bottega in Yountville CA

I had my first Clafoutis at Chef Michael Chiarello’s Restaurant in Yountville CA and ever since I became fascinated with this unique dessert of French origin that seemed light, rich at the same time, airy and accented with delicious fruit. The Clafoutis is basically a custardy, pancake like batter with fruit. The only fruits used for clafoutis are cherries, black berries, plums, prunes, apples and possibly cranberries. I found conflicting information about cranberries so I’m not sure about forking cranberries. When you use another fruit than the ones listed the name of this dessert changes to a flaugnarde.

Then I found Micheal Chiarello’s recipe for an apple Clafoutis so I made one.

Apple Clafoutis

The batter tasted and had pretty much the same texture as the one from the restaurant. This dessert is very good. But I still have an interest in learning different recipes for clafoutis. The Michael Chiarello Clafoutis were the lightest and airiest of the clafoutis so far.

I also studied several other recipes for clafoutis and I found they were all very different.

So I decided to try Chef Raymond Blanc’s recipe for clafoutis because he is French but is also one of Britain’s most respected chefs. He also owns a two star Michelin Restaurant/Hotel.

This Clafoutis also was richer and also custardy but had a slightly sugar sanded surface that added another texture to it. In Chef Blanc’s recipe he recommends not to add anything else. The clafoutis is done at this point and should be served warm. This is the only warm one I had so far.

I recently tried the sour cherry clafoutis from Bink’s Midtown in Phoenix AZ.

Sour Cherry Clafoutis from Bink’s Midtown Phoenix AZ

The Bink’s Midtown clafoutis was the most custardy of all the clafoutis I tried. Instead of being like a custardy pancake batter this clafoutis was more like dense flan. (but not in a bad way)  The Bink’s Clafoutis was also very layered with many flavors and textures.

So this is WTFork I found out about the Clafoutis so far Part 3

The Forking Truth