Gluten Free Cherry Clafoutis - Recipe of the Week

I am still eating my way through my preserved cherries. Two years after a mammoth cherry picking and preserving session I have two litre kilner jars of hand stoned Kentish cherries in syrup and one litre of cherry brandy. So with my super cool pal Sophie and her hubby coming for dinner I decided to make a cherry clafoutis. 


The french batter pudding has been something of a fascination for years, and I assumed that it was a no go gluten free pudding, but I was wrong. I recently came across two recipes for clafoutis that were naturally gluten free and with plump cherries waiting to be used I had the perfect excuse and recipe.


I ended up using a recipe from The Cranks Bible as it was the most straightforward and included a scant 50g of Coeliac friendly potato flour. Make sure you have an oven proof dish big enough for all the liquid (something I failed to do), but thankfully it turned out perfectly, just cooked enough and browned on the surface.


Cherry Clafoutis
Ingredients
A knob of butter to grease the dish
500g stoned cherries (preserved or fresh)
50g potato flour
A pinch of sea salt
60g golden caster sugar
4 organic eggs beaten
300ml whole milk
300ml double cream
2 organic egg yolks 


Method
Preheat the oven to 180degrees
Butter a shallow baking dish, sprinkle with a tablespoon of the sugar and put the cherries in the dish
Make the batter in a large bowl. Sift the flour and mix with the salt, sugar and gradually beat in the whole eggs. Mix in the milk and cream followed by the egg yolks to make a smooth batter the consistency of single cream.
Pour the batter over the cherries and bake for 40minutes until the batter is risen and golden on the surface.
Serve warm.  

Picked and Pickled!

One hour, 3 people and 30 kilos of cherries later, the cherry tree that I have rented has been stripped bare. The orchard grows a range of modern cherry varieties such as Kordia, Colney and Sweetheart, and mine being Colney were second in the season to ripen in the middle of July, right on schedule despite the recent pouring rain.

Rain damages these precious soft fruits, so me and my fellow cherry pickers were pleased to see the perfect ripe round fruits. Not that a few splits would have made any impact on the amount that we picked.

The Sussex Cherry Picker - aka my mother was sent home from the orchard with a mere 5kilos with instructions to freeze the ones she was unable to eat. I only have an ice box which is already crammed with garden herbs, so there will be some Sussex cherry treats later in the year to look forward to if we're not sick of them by then.

Worried about my precious fruit spoiling, I prepared in advance for pickling and jam making. On arrival back at the flat, the reality of the situation dawned on me...the random collection of just 8 jars in varying sizes would not be quite enough. Off to the cook shop for some kilner jars - litre ones!

What I thought would be an evening making a few jars of jam and cherries in kirsch, turned into a week of evenings de-strigging and stoning cherries and sterilising jars. What fun though?! Never having preserved before, I quickly got to grips with the essentials such as making sugar syrups, jam making, and most importantly securing a good seal.

Preserving has come back into fashion, thankfully as I scoured the Internet for cherry recipes - spiced cherries for Christmas, cherries in kirsch, cherries in syrup, cherry jam - or rather compote (cherries are a low pectin fruit, which I learnt after making the jam when it didn't set!). So I have stacks of cherries preserved for the rest of the years puddings, breakfast yoghurt toppings - plus the cherry brandy. Not that I like brandy - good job I like cherries though!

Cherries – ripe for the picking…

Literally, the cherries on the tree that I have rented from Michael Dallaway down in East Sussex have had their fill of sunshine and are ready to be devoured! I am off this weekend with boxes ready in the car, to pick from my allocated tree. However, before I can even consider how much fruit we will have, I need to plan my "batterie de cuisine".

What to do with up to 30kg of ready to eat cherries? Eat them? Not all of them!

A large jar of cherries in kirsch – bought in a supermarket January sale was the hook which made the idea of renting a whole cherry tree so enticing, so steeping cherries in kirsch is an obvious use. But what else... ? Fresh cherries from a bowl of iced water through the day? Other recipes in the running are cherry jam, cherry compote, cherry ice cream plus a few desserts classics such as clafoutis, cheesecakes and chocolate puddings. At this rate I may run out of cherries?