Cherry Clafoutis, this classic French dessert is the ultimate flan-like recipe that comes together really quickly and easily! It has a custard-like creamy texture and can be made with a great variety of fruits, eg. berries, cherry, apple, etc. This is a rustic dessert, with a homemade comfort food vibe, and probably the easiest recipe on my blog!
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📖 What is Clafoutis
Clafoutis is a baked French dessert that contains some kind of fruit (cherries most often) and a flan-like batter made with milk, egg, cream, and flour, and traditionally baked either in a pie dish or cast-iron skillet. Clafoutis is typically served warm and dusted with powdered sugar or with cream.
The Clafoutis comes from the Limousin region of France and nowadays served in many high-end restaurants throughout France. The clafoutis desserts I came across in France have more like custard, almost flan-like texture with very little flour and no baking powder in them, and my recipe is following the same. However, if you want your clafoutis fluffier, I suggest you use more flour and baking powder as well.
What fruit to use? Clafoutis is super versatile, you can make it with plenty of different fruits; cherry clafoutis, sour cherry clafoutis, plum clafoutis, apricot clafoutis, blackberry clafoutis, peach clafoutis, and the list goes on! Make sure you adjust the sugar according to the fruit.
If you love French desserts, make sure to check out my ultimate best French pastries dessert collection as well as my round up for European desserts.
🌟 Why this is the best recipe
- It is sooooo easy – As fancy as clafoutis sounds making this French dessert is extremely easy. It literally whips up just like a pancake! Seriously, this is the easiest recipe I will probably ever make on this blog
- It is very quick - All you need is to whisk the ingredients and bake!
- It is super delicious – I never compromise on taste! This clafoutis recipe is the perfect dessert with a silky custard-like texture, deep vanilla notes, and lovely cherries in each bite! Absolutely irresistible!
📝 Ingredient notes
- Flour: All purpose flour works absolutely well in this recipe. If you want to be a Pro when it comes to deciding what type of flour to use in your baking, please read my flour guide
- Almond flour: You can either purchase these flours or pulse bland roasted almond with the flour until it becomes a powder-like texture
- Salt: An essential ingredient in most dessert recipes. Balances flavor and enhances other ingredients
- Sugar: The recipe is made with a small amount of granulated sugar. Feel free to adjust the quantity depending on the sweetness of the cherries. If you want to learn about the different types of sugar and how to use them in baking, please read my sugar guide
- Egg: Clafoutis is sort of an eggy custardy dessert so the egg has a key function in this recipe. Use it at room temperature
- Milk: I suggest using whole milk in all my recipes at room temperature
- Heavy cream: Also known as whipping cream or double cream. The recipe is made with half cream - half milk for extra creaminess. I suggest using 36% fat content good quality cream at room temperature
- Vanilla extract: Vanilla is the key flavoring in this recipe, use good quality pure vanilla, I actually prefer vanilla bean paste. There are several great brands for fine, pure vanilla, I use Nielsen massey which I love and really recommend
- Cherry: I used frozen sour cherries, but the good news is that any fresh or frozen cherry can work. If using frozen, make sure you use a paper kitchen towel and carefully soak most of the unnecessary liquid out of the fruits before using so it won´t make the dessert too wet
For decoration, a small amount of powdered sugar is used. Out of powdered sugar? Check my substitutes for powdered sugar article!
🛒 You’ll find detailed measurements for all Ingredients in the printable version of the Recipe Card at the bottom of this post
👩🍳 How to make this recipe
1. The process of making the clafoutis batter
The easiest option is to place all ingredients (except cherry) into a food processor, but if you don´t own one I suggest the following
- Lightly whip room temperature eggs, cream, milk, and sugar for a minute using a hand whisk
- Whip in dry ingredients (flour, almond flour, salt) and vanilla extract
Well, that´s it! This recipe for clafoutis is as easy as whipping up waffles!
💡 Top Tip: Use room temperature ingredients for the best emulsification
2. How to bake
I suggest baking this recipe in 3 steps, but first, pre-heat your oven 15 minutes before baking. Make sure you invest in an inexpensive Digital oven thermometer especially if you are experiencing that your oven does not always work as it should.
- Generously butter a Pie dish 9 inch / 23 cm
- Pour ¼ of the clafoutis batter into the pan and prebake for 8 minutes
- Arrange the cherries around, pour the rest of the batter over the cherries and bake for 20 minutes.
- Hint with a small amount of brown sugar and bake for further 12 minutes.
Why there are so many steps? I like to pre-bake ¼ of the batter first, so it is easier to arrange the cherries on top neatly and not all the cherries will go to the bottom of the pan. If you want, you can skip this step.
The clafoutis will puff up (due to the egg) and get golden brown on the top.
💡 Top Tip: Do not overbake your cherry clafoutis! The inside should stay creamy, custard-like, you will love it!
🥣 Equipment notes
For a consistent, happy baking experience always measure your ingredients with the help of a Digital scale. This is absolutely a MUST.
This recipe makes enough clafoutis batter for a 9-inch pie pan, the one I am using is this: Pie dish 9 inch / 23 cm. If using a different tin, make sure to adjust the ingredient quantities.
Finally, a Digital oven thermometer is super useful especially if you tend to struggle with the baking part.
❓ Recipe FAQs
Yes, you can, replace it with an equal amount of AP flour and perhaps use natural almond extract instead.
Yes you can, however, you will need to adjust the ingredient quantities and baking time accordingly
Yes, most probably you can, however, you can´t just replace flour with gluten-free flour 1:1 without reformulating the recipe. When one ingredient changes, some other ingredients need to be changed too in order to keep the balance in the texture and flavor. If replacing flour with nut flour entire, you would get a different texture
Absolutely not, the egg is the heart of making clafoutis
When making Clafoutis, we are not expecting a huge rise. The small rise will come from the eggs
Dust with powdered sugar, perhaps with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, but honestly, I very much enjoyed eating it on its own and enjoy the vanilla, custard, and cherry flavors
Clafoutis is the best eaten fresh out of the oven, however, you can store it in the fridge in an airtight container for 1-2 days
I would not freeze this dessert, it is the best eaten fresh, warm, out of the oven
🍮 Other French desserts
Have you tried this recipe?
Please leave a 5-star ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating on the recipe card and consider leaving a comment as well! I would love to hear about how your dessert turned out and your feedback also helps other Readers!
Easy Clafoutis (VIDEO)
Ingredients
- 3 Eggs
- 150 g (⅔ cups) Milk room temperature
- 110 g (½ cups) Heavy cream room temperature
- 80 g (½ cups) Granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoon Vanilla extract
- 30 g (¼ cups) All purpose flour
- 30 g (¼ cups) Almond flour
- Pinch of Salt
- 230 g (1⅔ cups) Cherry
US customary cup measurement is an indicative figure only. Measure the ingredients with a digital scale by weight (gram). Baking is art but also science which requires precision and accuracy.
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 180C/356F
- In a bowl lightly wish eggs, milk, heavy cream and sugar
- Whisk in flour, almond flour, salt and vanilla
- Gently butter a Pie dish of 9 inch / 23 cm
- Pour ¼ of the clafoutis batter into the pan and pre-bake for 8 minutes
- Arrange the cherries around, pour the rest of the batter over the cherries and bake for 20 minutes
- Hint with brown sugar and bake for further 12 minutes or until top is golden brown
- Dust with powdered sugar and serve warm
- Store in fridge
Notes
- Measure your ingredients with a Digital scale for accuracy
- Use high fat content milk and cream for maximum creaminess
- If using frozen cherries, you must soak the cherries first with paper kitchen towel
JimE
Description says (video). No video I could find.
Katalin Nagy
The video is available after the table of content and when you scroll the site, it will then pop up anyway.
Stormy
I made this recipe last night and it was a complete success! I will be trying more recipes now. Thank you!!!
Ingrid
Love it!
Cris
I wanted to try something new and omg this is the biggest surprise ever! It’s so easy and delicious, will definitely make it again:) Thank you Katalin