New year, new recipes to conquer. I love trying something new. I’ve been on the lookout for a genuine Black Forest Cake recipe so I can compare it with the bastardized version I grew up with and I found one in a German cookbook I found at the library late last year. For some reason I thought I would need fresh cherries when I saw them at the market. Rarely do I buy fruits that are out of season, but I felt compelled to break my own rules sometimes for the sake of baking expeditions. When I got home and looked at my recipe again I guess I only needed bottled sour cherries! I was left with a rather expensive bag of cherries.

What to do…what to do with more than a pound of cherries? And they weren’t sweet enough to enjoy eating.

I turned to Twitter and sure enough my ever reliable friends had a lot of suggestions. In the end, the cherry clafoutis won.

Chef John pointed me to his video recipe and insisted I leave the pits be. Ken sent me the recipe he uses (from Martha, I believe) and it for pitted cherries, vanilla bean and kirsh (love). I created a compromise clafoutis: using whole cherries with kirsch custard, AND baking a small dish with pitted cherries to test if there really is a different. I also followed John’s method of pre-baking a layer of custard to keep the cherries from sinking down to the bottom of the pan. Brilliant!

Light, fragrant, mildly sweet bites of fluffy custard with fresh bursts of cherry goodness. And I have to say, the unpitted cherry owned the pitted cherry clafoutis by a landslide. Forget for one moment that you will bite into seeds. It’s a tiny price to pay for the great flavor.

Oh, and by all means, please use fresh vanilla beans if you can. Absolutely divine.

I can’t wait to bake more! Shall we make a pact and get ready to bake clafoutis come cherry season? Next time, I’ll take Barbara‘s recommendation and try Julia Child’s recipe. I’m also counting on the Tartine recipe I have from their book as well!

CHERRY CLAFOUTIS

Clafoutis is a baked French dessert of whole fresh cherries in puffed pancake-like custard. The cherries used are traditionally unpitted for good reason – better flavor. It also saves you some prep time. This recipe is so easy you can do it right before you serve dinner and will be ready in time for dessert. I love eating the leftovers in for breakfast, too. – Joy

Yields: 8 servings

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 1 ½ pounds fresh cherries, un-pitted*
• 3 tablespoons unbleached all purpose flour
• a pinch of salt
• ¼ cup granulated sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 2 large egg yolks
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 cup heavy cream
• seeds from 1 vanilla bean
• 3 tablespoons kirsch*
• confectioner’s sugar for dusting

* See Notes

Preparation

1. Pre-heat oven to 375°F. Grease a 10” porcelain tart dish with butter.
2. Sift flour and salt in a large bowl. Whisk in sugar, then the eggs and yolks, milk, cream, vanilla seeds and kirsch until combined.
3. Strain the custard batter and pour about 1 cup of custard into the tart dish. Bake for about 10 minutes to let it set. Take it out of the oven and distribute the cherries on top of the custard before pouring the rest of the batter. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes until custard is puffed and browned. Cool on a wire rack and serve warm dusted with confectioner’s sugar.

Notes

• To pit or not to pit? I’ve baked pitted and unpitted cherries and the latter taste a lot better than unpitted. You can use pitted cherries if you wish.
• Kirsch or Kirschvasser: a clear, colorless fruit brandy distilled from fermented juice of cherries.