Cazuela Clafoutis
This fancy-sounding, but simple dessert is a great way to make the most of a fleeting berry season. We have a robust tangle of black raspberries behind the shop, and those that survived our lunchbreak foraging came home with us to make these custardy tarts. We've adapted Julia Child’s classic recipe to suit our cast iron cazuelas. The heat retention of the iron puffs the filling up high and cuts the cooking time from Julia’s recipe in half.
Each cazuela holds 1.5 cups, a generous, if oversized, portion. Traditionally made with cherries, this dish is flexible for whatever is in season. The below will fill two cazuelas.
1 1/4 cups milk
1/3 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp salt
1 cup flour
- Preheat the oven to 350º
- Blend the above for one minute
- Grease each cazuela with butter and pour in a 1/4 inch layer of batter
- Set the bottom of the custard by heating the cazuelas over a medium flame for about a minute. You will see the batter ever so slightly pull away from the wall. This step will prevent your fruit from sinking to the bottom
- Add a layer of berries, about 1/3 cup per cazuela. Julia’s recipe calls for a layer of sugar to be sprinkled over the fruit here, but I don’t find that the dish needs the extra sweetness
- Fill each cazuela nearly to the top with the remaining batter and bake for ~35 minutes. Look for the top of the custard to become golden brown. Each clafoutis will be puffed up like a souflee (fun!) but will deflate quickly as it cools
