Buttermilk Cherry Clafoutis
Happy Monday! I am a very happy camper today because tomorrow I am headed home to California for the week! Activities on the itinerary include spending time with family, hunting/confirming a wedding venue, ravaging the farmers’ market for rhubarb, pluots, apriums, and other seasonal California produce, laying out by the pool, drinking Peet’s iced lattes, and celebrating Memorial Day with a family BBQ!
Growing up in California, there’s kind of an unwritten rule that every child must participate in the summer league swim team. Our cabana club, Oaktree, is right across the street from our house and ever since I could remember, I have spent every single day of every single summer at that pool… Usually making up excuses to not participate at swim team practice.
Oaktree is where I learned to swim and then a few years later had to be rescued by the lifeguard on duty– I’m still the only person in Oaktree history to ever have been “rescued.” It’s the place where my sister, Rachel, and I spent every day from 12-6PM in the summer sun, annoying lifeguards with our nonstop presence, riding our bikes into the pool, taking showers in the pool, and performing our rendition of TLC’s “Waterfalls,” complete with us standing on plastic chairs in the pool to pretend like we were levitating… Oaktree is where my siblings and I cashed in on our lucrative car wash, lemonade, coffee, smoothie, and baked good businesses… Which leads me to the “pool hill,” where we would pretend to play “Doctor” by making homemade remedies with plant sap, flowers, and dirt and eventually would try to hang out with Caitlin and her friends in the summer evenings. Safe to say, Oaktree holds a special place in my heart.
Since I’m headed home tomorrow, I was feeling nostalgic and I wanted to bake something reminiscent of my childhood summers. Every morning on our way to the pool we would pass under my neighbor’s cherry trees and since we were typically walking to the pool in the summer months, the trees were always in bloom and there were always smashed cherries all along the sidewalk. I was set on making Cherry Pie, but truthfully, I didn’t want to pit all of those cherries and I’m not entirely crazy about cherries so I made Cherry Clafoutis instead. Cherry Clafoutis is a rustic and classic French dessert full of fresh cherries and covered in a thick, custardy, flan-like batter. It’s great for both breakfast and dessert and can be whipped up in no time at all! Perfect for an easy Memorial Day dessert!
Buttermilk Cherry Clafoutis by The Bite-Sized Baker:
16 ounces fresh cherries, halved and pitted
4 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon fine salt
Powdered sugar, for dusting
- To make the clafoutis, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9-inch pie dish generously with butter and arrange cherries in the bottom. Set aside.
- In a medium mixing bowl, whisk eggs lightly and then add sugar until mixture is a pale yellow. Add buttermilk and vanilla and whisk until just combined. Add flour and sea salt and whisk until smooth. Pour batter into pie dish over cherries. Bake in oven until a skewer inserted into batter comes out clean and a golden brown crust has formed on top and bottom of clafoutis, about 45 minutes. Dust with confectioners’ sugar before serving.
