Cherry and Pistachio Clafoutis

The recipe asks for black cherries but I could only find the ordinary cherries. I say ordinary because they are found anywhere when in season. I absolutely love cherries. To the point that I can eat until I have stomach pain. Obviously knowing better I exercise self restrain these days.

I have read so much about clafoutis over the last few weeks – traditional cherry clafoutis, strawberry clafoutis..It was hard not to make some. I have to admit not having had any until today so I do not have anything to compare that with. I can, however, say that the end result is delicious. It is a recipe by a famous Australian desert chef called Philipa Sibley. Her recipes are really lovely and they tend to have a lovely twist. I find that the Australians always bring interesting elements to their recipes and I really love the ones I have already tried.

Even though it is recommended that we eat it as soon as we take it out of the oven – which I did, this morning it tasted just divine. Had it with a cup of coffee and no extra cream. I do not often have such thing for dessert but this morning I could not resist.

With regards to the recipe, as I had no ground pistachio I had to use the food processor to grind the ones I had. I processed it with the sugar as opposed to on its own. This way I made sure that all the lovely oils that are released by the pistachio were all captured by the sugar.

500gm black cherries, pitted

40ml kirsch

Clafoutis batter

1 cup thickened cream

2 eggs

3 eggs yolks

100gm caster sugar

70gm ground pistachio

100gm pistachios, coarsely chopped

1 tbsp plain flour

Pouring cream to serve

Combine the cherries and kirsch and stand for 10 minutes, then scatter over the base of a greased and sugared 6 cup-capacity shallow baking dish.

For the batter, combine thickened cream, eggs and egg yolks in a bowl and whisk until smooth. Combine the sugar, ground pistachios, chopped pistachios and flour in a separate bowl, then add cream mixture, stirring to combine. Pour batter over cherries, and bake at 180C / 160o fan assisted oven, for 20 minutes or until puffed and golden (the centre should still be creamy), and serve immediately with pouring cream passed separately.